No. 29 ~ The Family That Preys TogetherBUY ISSUE
Tolstoy’s standby about families and unhappiness is nowhere quoted in The Baffler 29, our unsentimental family issue. True, toddlers in Los Angeles routinely die from abuse, unsaved by California’s squadrons of “family preservation workers,” as reported by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, while dysfunctional families living in the hull of the American dream have to put up with pious social scientists from Harvard telling them to get their houses in order, according to Kim Phillips-Fein. But some families seem pretty darn happy in their very own special ways! Two of the candidates for next year’s presidential coronation are members of the same exceptional dynasties that, between them, have occupied the White House for twenty of the last twenty-seven years.
Spend more time with our family issue and it will guide you along the contemporary fault lines of this most sanctified institution, with commentary from Eugenia Williamson about the mainstreaming of 1970s punk rock onto the laps of suburban papas, Lucy Ellmann on nervous teenage girl vloggers posting their “Morning Routines” to YouTube, Jacob Silverman among the ugly fallout from the Ashley Madison hack, Kathleen Geier peering behind overaccumulating fortunes, and Tom Carson on family sitcoms—you have nothing to lose but your youths!
Table of Contents
Salvos
- Distressed Cut-Offs Lucy Ellmann
- Paterfamilias, Kaput Jacob Silverman
- The Children’s Hour Kim Phillips-Fein
- Clans of the Cathode Tom Carson
- Memoirs of a Revolutionary’s Daughter Neda Semnani
- Cradle to Grave Natasha Vargas-Cooper
- No Such Cuck Amber A’Lee Frost
- Punk Crock Eugenia Williamson
- A Not-So-Golden State Andrew J. Bacevich
- The Dialectic of Love and Authority George Scialabba
- Marching in Place Gene Seymour
- Better Management Through Belles Lettres Merve Emre
- The Family Plot Kathleen Geier
- Use It and Abuse It Corey Pein
Stories
- From “All the Houses” Karen Olsson
- The Third Son Andrei Platonov
- Monticello Thomas Geoghegan
- Bitter River Mark Jacobs
Poems
- Hard Objects Yang Xiaobin
- The Lighthouses Yang Xiaobin
- No Knowing Jennifer Nelson
- The Mantegna Oculus Rift Jennifer Nelson
- From “Depths” Anna Griva
- Tomb of the Unknown Celebrity Carter Ratcliff
- Something David Ferry
- Yo Mama Molly McQuade
- The American Academy on Mars Carter Ratcliff