What Happens When a Witness Recants?

Plus: revisiting “The 4-Hour Workweek”; the novel in the age of Amazon; and cheese in quarantine. View in browser | Update your preferences Monday, October 25, 2021 Welcome to the Daily! Let us know what you think of our new weekday format by replying to this e-mail, and thank you for your feedback so far. In today’s newsletter: the novel in the age of Amazon; revisiting “The 4-Hour Workweek” in pandemic times; and cheeses—they’re just like us! Photograph by Andres Serrano for The New Yorker In 1983, when Ron Bishop was fourteen years old, he was a witness to the murder of a friend in the hallway of their West Baltimore junior high school. Prosecutors pushed hard to mount a case against three teen-agers whom the police had identified as suspects. The problem was that Bishop remembered seeing just one shooter, and attested to as much in an earlier statement. But, in the course of several meetings with law enforcement and prosecutors, he changed his story to conform with the official narrative. “The threat was: if I didn’t tell them who did it, I could be charged with accessory to murder,” Bishop, who is now in his early fifties, explained to Jennifer Gonnerman, in her deeply moving story about Bishop and the three innocent men he helped send to prison. “In wrongful-conviction cases, there are often secondary victims: individuals who, having helped incarcerate an innocent person, must confront their own culpability once that person is freed,” Gonnerman writes. For Bishop, there has been another layer of guilt and trauma—he knew at the time that his testimony was false, but felt powerless to speak the truth. In addition to shining a light on the ways in which young witnesses can be pressured and manipulated, Bishop’s story is a personal one of shame, regret, and—maybe, with reckoning and forgiveness—something close to redemption. —Ian Crouch, newsletter editor Read “When a Witness Recants.” Jennifer Gonnerman has written extensively about the criminal-justice system, including a group of volunteers helping prisoners prep for parole, and the New York State prisoner who became a jailhouse lawyer and changed the system. Editor’s Picks Books Is Amazon Changing the Novel? In the new literary landscape, readers are customers, writers are service providers, and books are expected to offer instant gratification. By Parul Sehgal Office Space Revisiting “The 4-Hour Workweek” How Tim Ferriss’s 2007 manifesto anticipated our current moment of professional upheaval. By Cal Newport Our Columnists What’s Left in the Democrats’ Shrunken Spending Bill? As the White House pushes for an agreement, some progressives are expressing dismay at the changes demanded by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. By John Cassidy Dept. of Delight “I guess having all hell break loose is inspiring to political cartoonists,” Barry Blitt says, in an interview about his latest cover for the magazine, “Crossing the Divide,” which pictures George Washington at odds with his boatmates. The question on everyone’s lips: What has cheese been doing during the pandemic? Eric Lach visits Crown Finish Caves, whose wheels have spent months quarantined indoors, growing mold. It turns out that “you can’t age cheese remotely.” It wasn’t just in Paris: “Surrealism Beyond Borders,” a new show at the Metropolitan Museum, reveals “that the craze for Surrealism surged like a prairie fire independently in individuals and groups around the world,” Peter Schjeldahl writes. On Tuesday, the Momofuku founder, David Chang, will discuss the future of food with Larissa MacFarquhar, exclusively for subscribers. Fun & Games Dept. Name Drop Play Today’s Quiz The fewer clues you need, the more points you receive. By Liz Maynes-Aminzade Crossword A Challenging Puzzle Semiaquatic salamander: four letters. By Anna Shechtman Daily Shouts If Horror Villains Became Fluent in Therapy-Speak “I need time to process . . . your body in a meat grinder!” By Jett Allen Daily Cartoon Monday, October 25th By Jason Adam Katzenstein P.S. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” premièred over the weekend. Our critics took exception—“much is amiss” (Anthony Lane); “sanded to dullness” (Richard Brody)—but all is not lost for the sandworm-curious. There is much to enjoy or re-enjoy in the novel, by Frank Herbert, from 1965. As Jon Michaud has written, “With daily reminders of the intensifying effects of global warming, the spectre of a worldwide water shortage, and continued political upheaval in the oil-rich Middle East, it is possible that ‘Dune’ is even more relevant now than when it was first published.” Today’s newsletter was written by Ian Crouch. Thanks for reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up for The Daily. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for The Daily from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.