This Week’s Issue: Wendy Williams Dishes the Dirt

Plus: Jill Lepore on the history of burnout; William Finnegan on mysterious racehorse deaths; and the return of the art fair.  View in browser | Update your preferences     Profiles Wendy Williams Dishes the Dirt The daytime gossip queen has tussled with P. Diddy, Whitney Houston, and Tupac Shakur. But her own private life can be as messy as the celebrity dramas she skewers. By Michael Schulman Listen to this story Have a world-class narrator read this to you.     American Chronicles Burnout: Modern Affliction or Human Condition? As a diagnosis, it's too vague to be helpful—but its rise tells us a lot about the way we work. By Jill Lepore     The Sporting Scene Can Horse Racing Survive? In a time of changing sensitivities, an ancient sport struggles to justify itself. By William Finnegan     Comment The Larger Lesson of Liz Cheney's Ouster It is to her credit that she stood up to Trump, but, with the Middle East erupting again, let's be careful that we don't also embrace her bellicose foreign-policy views. By Nicholas Lemann     Letter from England The Mysterious Origins of the Cerne Abbas Giant On a hillside ages ago, people inscribed a naked man with a twenty-six-foot-long erect penis. Why did they do it? By Rebecca Mead     The Theatre Echoes of Trauma in Two Plays For "Zoetrope," viewers watch lovers navigate their differences during the pandemic lockdown; Bill Gunn's "The Forbidden City" follows a Black middle-class family in 1936. By Vinson Cunningham     Books Francis Bacon's Frightening Beauty Obsessed with the body and its torments, the artist said that he wanted to strike the viewer's "nervous system." By Joan Acocella     On Television The Achievement of Barry Jenkins's "The Underground Railroad" In his reimagining of Colson Whitehead's novel, Barry Jenkins is a virtuosic landscape artist. By Doreen St. Félix     The Art World The Return of the Art Fair Three things made the late-pandemic Frieze New York a tonic: the joy of seeing works in person, the smaller number of galleries, and face masks. By Peter Schjeldahl   Humor from The New Yorker     Shouts & Murmurs The Heartful Home Does that make pillows the breast implants of the headboard? By Paul Rudnick     Cartoons from the Issue Cartoons from the Issue Drawings and drollery from this week's magazine.   You're receiving this e-mail because you signed up for This Week's Issue from The New Yorker. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up.   Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our privacy policy    Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.