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Author

Jacob Bacharach

Jacob Bacharach is a novelist and essayist. His most recent book is A Cool Customer: Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. He divides his time between Blacksburg, Virginia, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

All Articles
September 18, 2023
Magazine
The Ludicrous, Depressing Appeal of the Crypto Guy
How Sam Bankman-Fried and other unscrupulous CEOs managed to swindle so many people
July 25, 2023
Critical Mass
The Historian Who Lost Her Memory of a Hijacking
At 12 years old, Martha Hodes was on board a hijacked plane and was taken hostage for a week. How did she forget much of the experience?
June 1, 2023
Critical Mass
The True Mystery in James Comey’s Crime Novel
What do politicos turned authors know that we don’t?
November 3, 2022
Critical Mass
The Futility of a Tell-All About Anthony Bourdain
Charles Leerhsen’s biography promises the unfiltered story of Bourdain’s life and final days. But it misses the qualities that made him so magnetic in the first place.
October 12, 2022
Critical Mass
Should Margaret Sullivan Have Been Tougher on the Media?
In her memoir, the former public editor of The New York Times surveys the ills of the news business.
March 15, 2022
Critical Mass
Why Is David Leonhardt So Happy?
He has repeatedly declared the pandemic is in retreat. He has cast doubt on masks. And he has one of the biggest platforms at The New York Times.
January 4, 2022
Critical Mass
The Next Coup Attempt Will Be More Dangerous
Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague’s book shows how scattershot January 6 was—and why a repeat could be harder to stop.
December 27, 2021
Critical Mass
Joan Didion Cast Off the Fictions of American Politics
Few writers examined their own assumptions and misapprehensions as intelligently as Didion.
March 8, 2021
Magazine
The Gen X Culture Warriors Who Never Grew Up
How the 1990s created a group of thinkers obsessed with cancel culture
February 24, 2021
Critical Mass
The Unholy Alliance That Fuels American Nativism
How big business and the far right joined to create a uniquely hostile climate for immigrants.
September 10, 2020
Critical Mass
The Emptiness of Matthew Yglesias’s Biggest Idea
“One Billion Americans” is a loosely-informed mishmash of policy, held together by anxieties about American power.
September 9, 2020
Magazine
The Instant Nostalgia of the Televised Campaign
On watching a presidential election through the grainy medium of TV
April 3, 2020
Critical Mass
Watching South Park at the End of the World
The soul of conservative America just might be found in a cartoon about a gang of vulgar little boys.
December 13, 2019
Magazine
Trump’s Loyal Apprentice in Congress
Matt Gaetz has all the cocksure swagger of a reality television contestant.
August 21, 2019
Who Gets to Speak Freely?
A new book takes the concerns of campus activists seriously.
June 5, 2019
David Brooks’s Moral Journey
The New York Times columnist's new book, “The Second Mountain,” is a fount of easily won wisdom.
April 4, 2019
Magazine
MSNBC’s Wild Ride
Thanks to Trump and the Russia investigation, the liberal network is booming. But is it selling its viewers a conspiratorial fantasy?
June 27, 2018
Don’t Count on History to Judge Wisely
The Supreme Court's rulings on Tuesday aren't certain to be condemned by future generations.
February 23, 2018
America’s Gun Sickness Goes Way Beyond Guns
The ongoing debate about gun control points to a deeper rot that pervades this country's culture and political economy.
October 27, 2017
Joan Didion Is the Best Thing About Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
What saves this highly anticipated documentary from being a workmanlike exercise is the cool customer at its heart.

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