Table of contents for November 26, 2018 in TIME Magazine

BEHIND THE COVER Look familiar? This week’s cover features a modern update on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom of Worship from the American artist’s iconic 1943 “Four Freedoms” series, inspired by FDR’s 1941 State of the Union. Nonpartisan arts group For Freedoms re-created the whole set; see more at time.com/four-freedoms EXPOSURES On TIME.com, see how photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally documents life under the poverty line—and challenges stereotypes about class—in Troy, N.Y., where she grew up. Above, Andi Lynne Cavanaugh in 2004, then 12. “I didn’t know I would go on to document her for 14 years,” Kenneally says. See photos from her new book at time.com/upstate-girls GIFT GUIDE TIME’s 2018 installment of our Best Inventions list (page 50) can also help jump-start your holiday shopping, thanks to gift-friendly items like Nintendo…

AFTER ALL THE BUILDUP TO AN ELECTION Day that saw the highest midterm turnout in a century, to wait days or weeks to find out who won a race is painful. It’s also routine. In the wake of the Nov. 6 elections, Arizona’s Senate race, Georgia’s gubernatorial race and Florida’s Senate and gubernatorial races went into overtime as local boards of election dived into the painstaking process of tabulating votes. But it was in Florida where things got the most heated, and the state illustrates how a process that’s working normally can attract attention that makes it seem strange. Frustration over a lack of transparency in vote counting in two big counties sparked the ire of Florida Governor Rick Scott, who was leading in his race for the Senate.…

STAN LEE, THE MARVEL COMICS WRITER AND EDITOR WHO died Nov. 12 at 95, revolutionized the comic book in the 20th century and set the stage for a superhero takeover of the silver screen in the 21st. Lee, who was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City to Romanian Jewish immigrants, once said he took up a pen name not over worries about anti-Semitism but so he could write a “real book” under his birth name. He wouldn’t need to. Instead he established comics as a legitimate art form. The turning point came in the early 1960s, after Marvel tasked Lee with creating superheroes to compete with those at rival DC Comics. Although uncomplicated, square-jawed do-gooders like Superman had come to dominate the format after a 1950s Senate…

THE GLOBAL SUPPLY of oil might be about to shrink, and prices rise. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister announced on Nov. 11 the kingdom would cut its oil production by 500,000 barrels per day in December. In the same month, the 15 nations that make up OPEC will likely confirm a coordinated move to push prices higher. Add the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports that came into force on Nov. 5, lower production in crisis-plagued Venezuela and the risk that unrest may lower production in places like Libya and Nigeria, and oil could be set for a rebound. Or maybe not. Before we prepare for a significant price surge, let’s remember the reasons why oil prices have been sliding in recent weeks. Projections for oil demand are…

President Trump is sending more than 7,000 active-duty troops to the southern border to protect against what he calls an “invasion” by a migrant caravan traveling north through Mexico. U.S. active-duty forces haven’t deployed to the border since the late 1990s. The last two Presidents sent reserves from the National Guard: BUSH OPERATION JUMP START JUNE 2006–JULY 2008 6,000 National Guard members Assisted in apprehending 186,814 undocumented immigrants and seizing 316,364 lb.of marijuana OBAMA OPERATION PHALANX JULY 2010–JUNE 2011 1,200 National Guard members Assisted in apprehending 17,887 undocumented immigrants and seizing 56,342 lb.of marijuana NOTE: OPERATION PHALANX WAS EXTENDED AFTER JUNE 2011, PROVIDING AERIAL SURVEILLANCE SUPPORT; SOURCES: GAO; DOD…

M C Q U E E N With affection and subtle directness, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui pay tribute to the late, great designer. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS Tim Wardle tells the story of triplets separated at birth—with a shocking twist. MINDING THE GAP Bing Liu chronicles the lives of three young men growing up in a Rust Belt city. THE KING Eugene Jarecki traces the rise and fall of Elvis Presley—and America. RBG Julie Cohen and Betsy West illuminate the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court Justice with the mostest.…

1 YALITZA APARICIO Roma You can study acting your whole life and never feel you’re getting it right. Or you can be a total nonprofessional—someone who never dreamed of pursuing an acting career—and deliver a performance so finely textured that no one would guess you’d never before stepped in front of a camera. Aparicio, who plays Cleo, the domestic worker in Alfonso Cuarón’s semiautobiographical Roma, was teaching school in Oaxaca when the director found her. Lucky for him. Her performance is the kind of jewel a filmmaker could seek forever and never find. 2 ETHAN HAWKE First Reformed If you’re going to make a movie about guilt and spiritual self-flagellation, as Paul Schrader did with First Reformed, you need a great face. Ethan Hawke plays the pastor of a…

1 KILLING EVE Amid a year of righteous, if belated, reckoning with women’s disturbing experiences in Hollywood, Killing Eve celebrated the female gaze. Though its form—a cat-and-mouse thriller—was familiar, its central characters felt new: a bored, underestimated British intelligence operative (Sandra Oh) and the glamorous, girlish, maybe sociopathic assassin (Jodie Comer) she goes rogue to apprehend. As interpreted by writer and producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the characters were multidimensional but incomplete, their mutual obsession fueled by the sense that each woman had something crucial the other lacked. Both performances, especially Oh’s Emmy-nominated study in midlife transformation, were breathtaking. For its fervent, largely female fan base, the show was a gift from the goddesses. (BBC America) 2 SHARP OBJECTS HBO assembled a dream team—Big Little Lies director Jean-Marc Vallée, UnREAL co-creator…

O, SSION Underground pop experimentalist SSION’s Cody Critcheloe mashes up ’80s, ’90s, funk, dance and punk on an eclectic album that’s equally moody and campy. THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, CHLOE X HALLE On their debut album, the sister act—mentored by Beyoncéuse their skills as precocious beatmakers to make inventive alt-R&B. LOST & FOUND, JORJA SMITH The soulful British vocalist, beloved by Drake and Kendrick Lamar, puts her rich and supple voice to good use on songs about everything from racial profiling to young love. HEAVEN AND EARTH, KAMASI WASHINGTON Virtuosic jazz saxophonist and composer Washington explores the metaphysical on his latest, a double-sided meditation dense with bold riffs and pulsing energy.…

“PSYCHO,” POST MALONE Neither sung nor rapped so much as rhythmically brayed, this nonsensical whine-fest was the year’s most embarrassing No. 1. “GIRLS LIKE YOU,” MAROON 5 FEATURING CARDI B Cardi B’s verse is the only saving grace of this inexplicable hit, which sounds engineered to soundtrack department-store commercials. “THE HARD STUFF,” JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE Timberlake’s ill-advised foray into folk comes crashing down on this messy, twangy tune. “LOVER, LEAVER,” GRETA VAN FLEET Though the band is basically a Led Zeppelin tribute act, “Lover, Leaver” shows none of that band’s creativity. “FALL,” EMINEM Slim Shady’s diss track is so tasteless that even his collaborator on the song, Justin Vernon, disavowed it.…

1 THE MARS ROOM Rachel Kushner Romy Hall is a mother to a young son and a former dancer at a San Francisco strip club. She’s also starting two life sentences at a miserable women’s prison in California. Kushner, a two-time National Book Award finalist, slowly and deliciously unfolds the tapestry of Romy’s backstory—infusing mystery and humor in unlikely places—while interrogating the harsh realities of the U.S. prison system. 2 ASYMMETRY Lisa Halliday Halliday’s three-part novel debut made headlines for its first section, about the relationship between a young editor and a writer reminiscent of Philip Roth, with whom she had a real-life romance. But it’s the subtlety and skill with which she ties that story to another—about an Iraqi American detained by immigration in 2008 at London’s Heathrow…

1 BAD BLOOD John Carreyrou In 2015, Pulitzer Prize winner Carreyrou broke the news that $9 billion startup Theranoswhich promised to revolutionize health care with a new blood-testing method—didn’t have the technology it claimed to have. In this Silicon Valley drama, he opens his reporter’s notebook to deliver a tale of corporate fraud and legal browbeating that reads like a crime thriller. 2 BARRACOON Zora Neale Hurston The final survivor of the last known ship to carry enslaved people from Africa to the U.S. was 86 when Hurston, then a young anthropologist, interviewed him about his enslavement and eventual freedom. The resulting work, unpublished until half a century after the beloved author’s death, is an urgently empathetic story of persecution and survival. 3 EDUCATED Tara Westover Raised in Idaho…

1 GOD OF WAR Previous God of War games focused on Spartan turned deity Kratos’ brutal acts of revenge against the gods who killed his family. This more mature story shows the aging demigod as a stoic father and grieving widower. God of War impresses with its game play, but players may need a tissue or two when the father-son dynamics get more real than mythic. (PS4) 2 SPIDER-MAN Insomniac Games has made the best-yet video game featuring Spider-Man—in fact, players will so enjoy the simple act of swinging around a hyperrealistic New York City that they might forget about fighting classic Spidey foes like Wilson Fisk and Electro. (PS4) 3 INTO THE BREACH From the makers of the award-winning FTL: Faster Than Light comes this turn-based strategy game…

‘[The] nation’s flag ... doesn’t mean what it used to any longer.’ VICTORIA ANN, Facebook REDDER. BLUER. TRUMPIER. Molly Ball’s Nov. 19 cover story on the 2018 U.S. midterm elections sparked debate on Facebook—with some reactions as split as America’s politics as a whole. Aldrin Ramirez DeCaro said the Republican hold on the Senate is a sign of American support for President Trump, while Jeanne Kalver joked that the cover illustration of red hands grabbing at the flag might represent Republicans “getting caught red-handed with all their lies.” Other comments, however, focused on a need to transcend party lines. “As much as I disagree with Trump, his presidency is good for our political system,” wrote Jonathan Bocanegra. “It’s getting people out to vote.” Thomas Verdon wrote, “Everyone is…

FAXING FEVER In Japan, the fax machine remains popular. In 2011, according to the government’s Cabinet Office, nearly 100% of the nation’s offices and 45% of private homes had a fax machine. TOP TAPES According to the data-analytics firm Nielsen, sales of cassette tapes in the U.S. have more than quadrupled over the past seven years. Roughly 174,000 were sold in 2017, making up 0.1% of total album sales. FAIL-SAFE FOWL In 2011, the People’s Liberation Army in China revealed it still retains an army of 600 courier pigeons. In case of a breakdown in digital communication, the bird reserves would deliver vital messages.…

THE WORD AMAZON HAS BEcome as synonymous with Seattle as it is with South America, but on Nov. 13, the e-commerce giant confirmed reports that it would establish two new headquarters in the metro areas of New York City and Washington, D.C. It’s a big deal for the company, and for the cities involved in the yearlong lobbying bonanza that led up to it. The growth promised by Amazon, including some 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion in investment, led some locales to offer upward of $7 billion in economic incentives with the hopes of winning “HQ2.” That prospect worried municipal watchdogs who say such deals can hurt cities in the long run. Amazon’s announcement that Long Island City, N.Y., and Arlington, Va., had been picked also noted that…

After a shooting killed 12 people in California, on Nov. 7, the terror of mass shootings was compounded by a sense of hopelessness. But much can be done, especially if the public better understands what to demand of its governments. On the prevention front, most people know to call for improved background-check systems and red-flag laws—both of which are essential. But they should also seek required permit renewals, which are common across the rest of the developed world and would address the problem that people do sometimes descend into a potentially violent tailspin after they acquire weapons. There are also ways to make shootings less lethal. People are aware of the need to ban the sale of the most dangerous firearms—especially AR-15–style rifles. But as important is the need…

1 ROMA Alfonso Cuarón has built a career making beautiful films, but Roma, his tribute to one of the women who raised him—played, with simmering warmth, by newcomer Yalitza Aparicio—is his most gorgeous and moving. This is a deeply personal film for Cuarón, but its embrace is universal: in telling his own story, he gets us thinking about the latticework of people who made each of us what we are. Roma is an ode to the power of memory, as intimate as a whisper and as vital as the roar of the sea. 2 WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? Sometimes it feels like everything is awful and nothing will ever get better. Yet Morgan Neville’s lyrical documentary about the quietest television superstar ever, Fred Rogers, of the long-running (and…

LIFE ITSELF Dan Fogelman holds your feelings hostage in this morbid melodrama that prioritizes sentimentality over coherent storytelling. P E P P E R M I N T Jennifer Garner’s thriller about a suburban mom on a revenge spree is painfully formulaic and lazily written. THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS Not even an A-list cast could save this vulgar and offensive comedy starring raunchy, randy puppets. THE KISSING BOOTH Netflix’s hugely popular teen movie trades in regressive and sexist stereotypes. DESTINATION WEDDING Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder’s misanthropic romantic comedy hits only sour notes.…

PATRICIA CLARKSON In 2018, the actor gave two showstopping performances: as a crafty political operative on House of Cards and, in Sharp Objects, an icy Southern matriarch with a mansion full of secrets. GREG BERLANTI God Friended Me. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Black Lightning. This is only a partial list of solid to stellar new shows the prolific producer had a hand in launching this year. SELENIS LEYVA The Orange Is the New Black actor injected compassion into characters like Dietland’s feminist terrorist leader and, in Maniac, a corrupt administrator at a pharmaceutical company. MARTI NOXON The longtime creator continued to elevate women’s voices, launching Sharp Objects and the less successful but more radical Dietland.…

1 INVASION OF PRIVACY Cardi B With her first album, Bronx rapper Cardi B had a lot to prove: the former dancer and reality-TV star, whose rise to popularity was buoyed by her candid, winning social-media persona, had only one big single under her belt: “Bodak Yellow,” which topped charts in 2017. But Invasion of Privacy delivered—not just on the dark, defensive rap that earned her legions of fans, but also with irresistible hits like the fizzy “I Like It,” which nods at her Latin roots. Cardi’s debut doesn’t just earn her a seat at hip-hop’s table—it marks her as a singular voice. 2 DIRTY COMPUTER Janelle Monáe Monáe dazzled with her high-concept first two albums, performed in the character of a futuristic android. But on Dirty Computer, she…

1 SERIAL Serial became a runaway hit in its first season—then hit a lull in its second. But the true-crime podcast’s third season is its best. Instead of focusing on one case, the show covers a new story at the Justice Center in Cleveland each week. The cases may seem mundane—like a man caught carrying weed—but many stories end in jaw-dropping revelations, exploring the effects of racial bias along the way. Host Sarah Koenig expertly demonstrates how daily miscarriages of justice amass into systemic problems. 2 SLOW BURN After re-examining Watergate in Season 1, Slate writer and host Leon Neyfakh turns to Bill Clinton’s impeachment for Season 2. The recency of that history makes for a more complex podcast: Clinton is still alive, and today’s feminists are still reckoning…

FRIDAY BLACK, NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH In this vivid, original story collection, Adjei-Brenyah presents America in all its racism, weirdness and abject consumerism. DISORIENTAL, NEGAR DJAVADI This powerful, layered novel about a woman’s escape from revolutionary Iran weaves in tales of her family. THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS, LUIS ALBERTO URREA A family gathers one weekend to celebrate and say goodbye in Urrea’s bighearted, sprawling take on the Mexican-American experience. CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN, SAYAKA MURATA Murata’s affecting novel follows a misfit as she finds her place as the perfect employee in a Tokyo convenience store.…

1 OKLAHOMA! Edgy, dark and sexy aren’t the qualities you typically associate with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 musical about life on the prairie. Yet Daniel Fish’s provocative take jolts new life into this oft-musty staple. The painfully relevant production lands at the exact right moment in a country where demonization of immigrants and outsiders is on the rise and mass shootings are an everyday occurrence. (Racks of guns ominously cover an entire wall of the set.) Damon Daunno’s Curly is rock-star sultry, delivering a smoldering rendition of “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top.” Plus, chili and corn bread are served at intermission. 2 THE FERRYMAN Jez Butterworth is one of the most gifted playwrights of our time: his 2009 play Jerusalem was a marvel, a singular waterfall of…

1,204 Number of backlogged Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against federal government agencies in fiscal year 2018—a record high, according to a Nov. 12 Syracuse University report ‘She was up and working ... and cracking jokes. I can’t promise they were good jokes, but they were jokes.’ DANIEL STIEPLEMAN, nephew of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, giving an update on his aunt’s recovery from three rib fractures she suffered after a Nov. 7 fall 14 Number of write-in votes received by Gritty, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot, for various local offices in Camden County, New Jersey, during the midterm elections ‘WE SIT IN OUR OWN PAIN, THINKING THAT SOMEHOW WE’RE BROKEN.’MICHELLE OBAMA, former U.S. First Lady, describing her feelings after a miscarriage, in a Nov. 9 Good Morning America…

U.K. and E.U. agree on draft Brexit deal After months of negotiations, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said on Nov. 13 that officials had agreed on a draft text of the terms of the U.K.’s leaving the E.U. May is hoping British lawmakers and E.U. member states will approve the deal by Britain’s scheduled departure date of March 29, 2019. El Chapo trial starts with tight security The trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the accused Mexican drug lord who faces 17 counts, began in Brooklyn on Nov. 13. Extra security measures put in place because of Guzmán’s record of twice escaping from prison included keeping jurors and some witnesses anonymous. Missile bases discovered in North Korea Satellite images released on Nov. 12 by a Washington-based think tank…

DELAYED A vote on a plan to address the sexual-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, by the Vatican on Nov. 12. American bishops convened expecting to make changes but were told to wait until after a meeting next year. DECLARED That the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the worst in the country’s history, by Congo’s Health Ministry on Nov. 11. More than 200 people have died since August. SKIPPED A series of annual Asian summits, by President Donald Trump. Vice President Mike Pence went instead, but the move left experts concerned about U.S. policy toward Asia. ELECTED Representative Kevin McCarthy, the current No. 2 House Republican, as the new House minority leader on Nov. 14. He defeated hard-line Ohio conservative Representative Jim Jordan. PURCHASED…

An accurate Thanksgiving Sean Sherman, author of The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen cookbook, encourages people to put an end to the false narrative about the role of Native Americans in the holiday, and instead celebrate with indigenous cuisines: “Exploring native foods brings a deeper understanding of the land we stand on.” Fighting for normalcy As a valet at a hospital, Matthew Casteel photographed the insides of veterans’ cars to show the stuff behind their daily struggles. “While the reality of war is something that may be hard for someone to wrap their mind around,” writes TIME’s Clara Mokri of the images, “the interior of a car is not.” Justices for the people Former Senator John C. Danforth suggests Americans change how they approach the politics and procedure of selecting…

HIV TREATMENTS HAVE COME A LONG WAY IN the more than 30 years since the virus was first identified. Powerful antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) can now keep the virus controlled at levels that current tests cannot detect in the blood. Perhaps just as important, people who take these drugs diligently soon after they’re infected are unlikely to pass the virus to others. But the treatment isn’t perfect. Those with HIV need to take a pill every day for the rest of their lives, and even if they do, the virus can easily morph to become resistant to the drugs. That’s why patients on ARV treatment should faithfully monitor their virus and cycle between different combinations of drugs. Finding new, easier ways to more effectively treat HIV and stop its spread…

AT ETERNITY’S GATE Willem Dafoe makes a glorious, complex Vincent van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s film about the artist’s final years. BLINDSPOTTING Carlos López Estrada’s terrific Oakland, Calif., gentrification comedy, with Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, cuts deep. CHRISTOPHER ROBIN Ewan McGregor stars as Winnie-the-Pooh’s sidekick, now grown up, in this sweet, surprisingly affecting film. SHOPLIFTERS A tender, gorgeously filmed story about a family of thieves from Japanese master filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. THE HATE U GIVE George Tillman Jr. adapts Angie Thomas’s 2017 YA best seller into a marvelous, provocative drama.…

RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS Terence Nance does for sketch comedy what Atlanta did for the sitcom, using dream logic to tell stories about the black experience. (HBO) AMERICA TO ME In 2018, TV’s most nuanced take on race in America was Hoop Dreams director Steve James’ document of a year in the life of a racially divided Chicago-land high school. (Starz) YOU Lifetime kills its own clichés in this stalker-boyfriend drama that doubles as a satire of social media, male feminists and pop culture’s most disturbing romance tropes. (Lifetime) THE BISEXUAL The Miseducation of Cameron Post filmmaker Desiree Akhavan comes to TV in a dry British comedy that casts her as a woman who splits with her longtime girlfriend and starts exploring her bisexuality. (Hulu)…

1 HANNAH GADSBY Nanette Gadsby, who grew up gay in Tasmania, Australia—where homosexuality was only legalized in 1997—was sick of being self-deprecating for a laugh. So she created a tour de force performance that deconstructs all the familiar tropes of stand-up comedy. In the ashes, the comic bridges her history of trauma to contemporary culture’s failure to address systemic abuse. Nanette kickstarted a global conversation, ensuring that her underrepresented perspective was finally seen and heard—and when Gadsby wrenches out her pain on stage, she reveals her strength, rage, and yes, winning humor. 2 APARNA NANCHERLA The Standups Nancherla makes petty gripes about modern life feel worth talking about, using a PowerPoint presentation to execute jokes about Yelp reviewers, emojis and dating-app dynamics. Backed by these clever visuals, she comes…

1 “GIRLFRIEND” (FEATURING DÂM-FUNK) Christine and the Queens On her album Chris, French performer Hélöise Letissier wanted to explore what it means to be manly—“a macho man,” as she put it—while in a female body. On the dazzling, funky “Girlfriend,” she pulls it off and then some. Flexing lyrically over a Michael Jackson–inspired beat, Letissier wrestles with, and ultimately rejects, gender norms. In the process, she proves that pop’s boundaries can be just as fluid as identity—if only we are bold enough to assert ourselves as she does. 2 “THIS IS AMERICA” Childish Gambino With his musical project Childish Gambino, Donald Glover has the power to kick-start a news cycle with a single song—and top the charts too. Bolstered by an irresistible but layered music video, “This Is America”…

SANDRA Actor Alia Shawkat stars in a funny, futuristic fiction podcast that probes our dependence on technology. BODIES Allison Behringer explains how doctors fail to understand certain bodies—especially female ones—by exploring intimate medical mysteries. AMERICAN FIASCO Men in Blazers’ Roger Bennett hosts a wry documentary on the implosion of the 1998 U.S. men’s soccer team. THE SHADOWS This stunningly personal fiction podcast from Kaitlin Prest will test audiences’ comfort levels as they listen to a pair of puppeteers fall in and out of love. THE REWATCHABLES Rediscover old favorites like The Princess Bride and Training Day as culture writers discuss movies that will never grow old.…

BELONGING, NORA KRUG In this evocative graphic memoir, Krug wrestles with her family’s ties to Nazi Germany and the weight of that history. THE WIZARD AND THE PROPHET, CHARLES C. MANN Will humans exhaust this planet? Mann explores how two 20th century thinkers presented conflicting visions—innovation vs. conservation—of our future. WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE, DAVID REICH A leading geneticist provides deep, provocative insights into the real story of humanity’s tangled roots. AMITY AND PROSPERITY, ELIZA GRISWOLD Griswold offers an intimate account of a Pennsylvania woman’s fight to protect her family against frackingand the story of the poisoning of America.…

MLIMA’S TALE Two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage turns her journalistic eye to the horrors of the global ivory trade with this story of a legendary bull elephant—played by the remarkable Sahr Ngaujah. PALE SISTER In staged readings in New York and the U.K., the stellar Beckett actor Lisa Dwan collaborated with the great Colm Tóibín for this fierce reimagining of Antigone. Long live the resistance. SUGAR IN OUR WOUNDS This heart-wrenching staging of Donja R. Love’s slavery drama featured a magnificent tree that dominated the proceedings—and provided more than just shelter for this gentle queer love story.…

The main character in your new novel, Nine Perfect Strangers, is a genre fiction writer who gets little respect. Is she a mouthpiece for you? A little bit. I didn’t want the book becoming a soapbox or preachy. But of course because this character was close to my heart, she has feelings that would be similar to mine. Other characters have recently experienced sudden windfalls. What changed for you after you became successful? The biggest change was it enabled my husband to become a stay-at-home dad. It enabled me to go on book tour while he holds the fort. Nine Perfect Strangers is set at a spa. How do you feel about the wellness industry? I hope I satirize it in the same…