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THE END OF the American Century feels like the end of something else: a novel, maybe, that we thought would end differently. Trump’s victory struck many people as implausible, but plausibility is as much a measure of narrative as a measure of politics. What kind of story do you think is being told?…

Beyond the religious right, the governor of Alaska was a relative unknown. Palin introduced herself at the Republican National Convention as a real American from the small town of Wasilla, population ten thousand. “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity,” she s…

So dumb. Let’s pretend it never happened. Deal?

Today will be back to normal.

When he moves within her, they’re nearly whole and innocent again. Yet at times, she glimpses a frantic tinge of yearning in his face that wasn’t there before — or else she didn’t apprehend it. Then he has the panic…

He’s a pond into which things drop, vanish. He hates when she calls him the absentminded professor, sensing a prick in it. Do all Ivy League academics possess reverent, pragmatic spouses who manage the boring earthly acts of clothing and cleaning and child-rearing and pleasing that they might occup…

It’s my body and I’ll do what I want with it, he replies.

I know and respect that it’s your body.

She sighs. This has been going on since she flew in three months ago and they moved into the new place. He begged her to come. I can’t live without you, he said. On her arrival, he met her at Log…