Yiyun Li’s “Things in Nature Merely Grow” is a bracingly candid memoir of profound loss: one written in the wake of her son James’s death by suicide, seven years after her older son Vincent died in the same way. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss Li’s book, which reads alternately like a work of philosophy, a piece of narrative criticism, and a devastating account of difficult facts. The hosts also consider other texts, from the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Tim Dlugos to a recent crop of standup-comedy specials about grief, and ask what such art can offer us in our current moment of turmoil. “Li is here as a kind of messenger, I think, to describe one of the farthest points of human experience,” Schwartz says. “This book is, in that way, sublime: words fail and fail and fail, but still they do something.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Things in Nature Merely Grow,” by Yiyun Li“Where Reasons End,” by Yiyun Li“‘My Sadness Is Not a Burden’: Author Yiyun Li on the Suicide of Both Her Sons,” by Sophie McBain (the Guardian)“The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion“How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir,” by Molly Jong-FastJohn Cale and Lou Reed’s “Songs for Drella”“Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark” (2023)“Sarah Silverman: PostMortem” (2025)“Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Special” (2024)“Rachel Bloom Has a Funny Song About Death,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“In Memoriam A. H. H.,” by Alfred Lord TennysonThe AIDS Memorial Quilt@theaidsmemorial on Instagram“G-9,” by Tim Dlugos New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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45:23
Our Romance with Jane Austen
Though Jane Austen went largely unrecognized in her own lifetime—four of her six novels were published anonymously, and the other two only after her death—her name is now synonymous with the period romance. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz choose their personal favorites from her œuvre—“Emma,” “Persuasion,” and “Mansfield Park”—and attempt to get to the heart of her appeal. Then they look at how Austen herself has been characterized by readers and critics. We know relatively little about Austen as a person, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to understand her psyche. It’s a difficult task in part because of the double-edged quality to her writing: Austen, although renowned for her love stories, is also a keen satirist of the Regency society in which these relationships play out. “I think irony is so key, but also sincerity,” Schwartz says. “These books are about total realism and total fantasy meeting in a way that is endlessly alluring.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austen“Persuasion,” by Jane Austen“Emma,” by Jane Austen“Mansfield Park,” by Jane Austen“Sense and Sensibility,” by Jane Austen“Northanger Abbey,” by Jane Austen“Virginia Woolf on Jane Austen” (The New Republic)Emily Nussbaum on “Breaking Bad” and the “Bad Fan” (The New Yorker)“How to Misread Jane Austen,” by Louis Menand (The New Yorker)“Miss Austen” (2025—)“Pride and Prejudice” (2005)Scenes Through Time’s “Mr. Darcy Yearning for 10 Minutes” SupercutNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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46:29
“Mountainhead” and the Age of the Pathetic Billionaire
“Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong’s latest work, a ripped-from-the-headlines sendup of tech billionaires called “Mountainhead,” is arguably an extension of his over-all project: making the ultra-wealthy look fallible, unglamorous, and often flat-out amoral. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the new movie draws on the tech oligarchs we’ve come to know in real life, and consider the special place that the über-rich have held in the American imagination since the days of Edith Wharton and Upton Sinclair. How has the rise of such figures as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg changed our conception? And, as they’ve become more present in our daily lives—and more cartoonishly powerful—is it even possible to satirize them? “I think now that job is more important and also harder to do for artists,” says Schwartz, “simply because the culture is so enraptured with wealth."Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Mountainhead” (2025)“Succession” (2018-23)“Oil!,” by Upton Sinclair“There Will Be Blood” (2007)“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” (1984-95)“Three Faces of American Capitalism: Buffett, Musk, and Trump,” by John Cassidy (The New Yorker)“Joe Rogan, Hasan Piker, and the Art of the Hang” (The New Yorker)“On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama,” by Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey (The New York Times)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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45:23
Lessons from “Sesame Street”
“Sesame Street,” which first aired on PBS in 1969, was born of a progressive idea: that children from all socioeconomic backgrounds should have access to free, high-quality, expressly educational entertainment. In the years since, the show has become essential viewing for generations of kids around the world. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the program’s radical origins and the way it has evolved—for better or for worse—over the decades. What do the changes in “Sesame Street” ’s tone and content reveal about how parenting itself has changed? “The way that a children’s program proceeds does give us a hint as to the kinds of people that a society is producing,” Cunningham says. “And childhood is not the same as it was when we were kids.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Sesame Street” (1969–)“Rechov Sumsum” (1983–)“How We Got to Sesame Street,” by Jill Lepore (The New Yorker)“Cookie, Oscar, Grover, Herry, Ernie, and Company,” by Renata Adler (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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50:25
The Season for Obsessions
There’s arguably no better time for falling down a cultural rabbit hole than the languid, transitory summer months. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the season allows us to foster a particular relationship with a work of art—whether it’s the soundtrack to a summer fling or a book that helps make sense of a new locale. Listeners divulge the texts that have consumed them over the years, and the hosts share their own formative obsessions, recalling how Brandy’s 1998 album, “Never Say Never,” defined a first experience at camp, and how a love of Jim Morrison’s music resulted in a teen-age pilgrimage to see his grave in Paris. But how do we square our past obsessions with our tastes and identities today? “Whatever we quote, whatever we make reference to, on so many levels is who we are,” Cunningham says. “It seems, to me, so precious.”This episode originally aired on June 27, 2024. Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Heathers” (1988)“Pump Up the Volume” (1990)The poetry of Sergei YeseninThe poetry of Alexander PushkinGoldenEye 007 (1997)“Elvis” (2022)“Jailhouse Rock” (1957)“Pride & Prejudice” (2005)The Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante“Ramble On,” by Led Zeppelin“Never Say Never,” by Brandy“The Boy Is Mine,” by Brandy and Monica“The End,” by The Doors“The Last Waltz” (1978)“The Witches of Eastwick,” by John Updike“Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003)“Postcards from the Edge” (1990)“Rent” (1996)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.
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