Roger and the Smooth Fox Terriers

Roger and the Smooth Fox Terriers

Roger and Carol had both worked and always hired dog walkers during the day, but Roger took Andy around the block for the last walk of the night. A smooth fox terrier is small, but vividly black-and-white, even after dark. The doormen on East Ninetieth Street looked out for Roger and Andy. Roger did not…

Read More

The Quad God and American Reckoning at the Olympics

The Quad God and American Reckoning at the Olympics

Of course, it wasn’t just Malinin whose performance tugged my attention away from Italy and toward America. A handful of athletes from the States have spoken up, less in righteous indignation than in baffled concern, about American politics these days. The curler Rich Ruohonen—who, when he’s not winning tournaments, works as a personal-injury lawyer—spoke at…

Read More

The Unlikely Success of a Strange Alabama Bookstore

The Unlikely Success of a Strange Alabama Bookstore

Eventually, Frank Reiss moved back to Atlanta and opened A Cappella Books, a shoebox of a store in Little Five Points, and Reiss watched his son’s success with admiration and even some envy. “I followed Frank to library sales to buy books,” he told me, “and then I asked him for a list of the…

Read More