My essay, “America’s Ancestry Craze,” illustrated with Chuck Close’s “Emma,” is the cover story of the June issue of Harper’s! It’s an outgrowth of a longtime obsession, as people who visited this site in the long-ago days when it was frequently updated might recall. Friends and readers connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram have been posting photos of the cover, and every time I see . . .
I’m working on a book about the science and superstition of ancestry, and my new site, The Begats, ponders ancestry miscellany of all kinds: genealogical, historical, cultural, scientific, religious, superstitious, personal. If you’re into this kind of nerdery: submit stuff! If you’re not on Tumblr, you can also follow along on Twitter or Facebook. And if you’re curious about my own family history, I wrote . . .
My Lives piece about visiting Jerusalem is in the New York Times Magazine this weekend. A friend and I were beginning that strange dance of making plans to make plans, when I mentioned that I’d be traveling to Jerusalem soon. “We should get together right away,” he joked, “before you come down with Messiah syndrome.” It was the kind of . . .
. Are you trapped in a Muriel Spark novel? I put together some clues for The Toast: You believe you can make insomnia work to your advantage by deciding what to think about. You identify communist intellectuals from the variety of dyspepsia remedies on the bathroom shelf. Such bad luck! You killed the nanny instead of your . . .