February 3, 2024
The Best
of
The
News
from
Abroad
No. 238
Weekend
Edition
Saturdays

at 6:00 AM
In This Week’s Issue
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

The gruesome murder of Jennifer Dulos, and the subsequent suicide of her accused husband, Fotis, rocked Connecticut. Now Fotis’s mistress is on trial—and might be the last hope for solving the crime …

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES

Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch and one of the world’s richest men, accused Sotheby’s of helping to bilk him out of $380 million for the Salvator Mundi. Phoebe Eaton takes stock of his spectacular loss …

SWAN DIVE

With Answered Prayers, Truman Capote thought he had written the Great American Novel. But its first installment, a skewering of his glamorous friends published in Esquire, put him on the fast track to social suicide, writes Sam Kashner …

ANOTHER ROYAL MESS

You’d think that the monarch of Monaco would have his financial wits about him, but recently published notebooks kept by Prince Albert’s property manager paint a “catastrophic” picture of the royal family’s inner workings …

A MOTHER’S RUIN

Diane Foley, whose son was brutally beheaded by jihadist terrorists, has teamed up with the novelist Colum McCann to tell her heart-wrenching story. Pico Iyer reviews …

POLAR PROSE

Some 1 in 10 Icelanders have a book published during their lifetime. (In the U.S., it’s more like 1 in 5,000.) Does the country owe its booming publishing industry to its 21-hour-long winter nights? …

PRECISION WARFARE

Masters of the Air was rumored to cost $300 million to produce, but does Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’s big-budget war series accurately reflect reality? Max Hastings takes a closer look …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Jack Lowden talks Slow Horses … David Downton’s Paris-couture dispatch … Calvin Trillin’s lessons in journalism—and humor … inside the cult of cute … this aged monastery is the best way to enjoy Italy … Who’s going to top this week’s Attention-Whore Index? …

But First …
Issue No. 238

The View from Here Jennifer Dulos disappeared three years ago. The husband accused of her murder is dead by his own hand. Now his mistress is on trial

By Rich Cohen
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
Publish and Perish

Swan Song Truman Capote’s social suicide by novel: the story behind the new mini-series Feud: Capote vs. the Swans

By Sam Kashner
Read On
Anatomy of a Scandal

Art on Trial When Dmitry Rybolovlev took Sotheby’s auction house to court and accused it of defrauding him, it revealed the limits of a billionaire’s power

By Phoebe Eaton
Photo Illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Air Supply

Unmasking the Venice Carnival

Whether you’re attending the ancient festival’s opulent masquerade balls or following from afar, celebrate in style with these sparkling jewels and coveted Italian slippers
Shop
Photo: Klaus-Peter Wolf/ImageBroker/Shutterstock (carnival)
Guest Edit

My Favorite Things The artist and muse to many a designer shares her elegant essentials, from handcrafted ceramics to the slippers that she keeps both at home and in her studio

By Anh Duong
Shop
Photo: Stanglmayr (Duong)
Landing Gear

The Big Screen An outrageously large, crystal-clear television! The telescope that won’t get relegated to a closet! An app to help you find out what that song is! And more …

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
Small Talk
“As part of our effort to raise our on-time performance, your flight left half an hour early.”
“As part of our effort to raise our on-time performance, your flight left half an hour early.”
Annals of War

Flyboys Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’s new Apple+ series, about the gallant Americans who flew Flying Fortresses over Germany, is a big-budget masterpiece. A historian weighs in

By Max Hastings
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index A special edition in which the men and women who dream of being the next Mike Pence battle one another for Donald Trump’s leash

Read On
Imperfect Spies

Slow Burner Jack Lowden and Gary Oldman steal the show in Slow Horses, the sleeper hit that captures the mundanity and pettiness, not the glamour, of M.I.5

By Stephen Armstrong
Read On
Roguish Riviera

Money Talks A peek inside Prince Albert’s finances paints a picture of a feeble monarch, browbeaten by the women in his life

By Adam Sage
Read On
Best
Read The O.D.D. Squad We’re already living through a golden age of young-adult literature, where characters such as Harry Potter… Read The Diaries of Franz Kafka Before Franz Kafka died, at the age of 40 in 1924, he left his literary executor and closest friend a note… Visit Chairish at Bergdorf Goodman Everybody who visits Bergdorf Goodman has their favorite floor. My best friend likes handbags, on… Dine Rocco Ristorante Don’t even think about showing up before nine p.m. That’s when Rome’s beau monde descends upon Rocco Ristorante, a spectacular… Apply Prada Anyone who remembers Prada’s first skin-care line and mourned its demise will welcome the news that it’s back—sort of. The new… Watch Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka Filmmakers Spencer Frost and Guy Williment and Australian surfers Letty Mortensen and… Read The O.D.D. Squad We’re already living through a golden age of young-adult literature, where characters such as Harry Potter… Read The Diaries of Franz Kafka Before Franz Kafka died, at the age of 40 in 1924, he left his literary executor and closest friend a note… Visit Chairish at Bergdorf Goodman Everybody who visits Bergdorf Goodman has their favorite floor. My best friend likes handbags, on… Dine Rocco Ristorante Don’t even think about showing up before nine p.m. That’s when Rome’s beau monde descends upon Rocco Ristorante, a spectacular… Apply Prada Anyone who remembers Prada’s first skin-care line and mourned its demise will welcome the news that it’s back—sort of. The new… Watch Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka Filmmakers Spencer Frost and Guy Williment and Australian surfers Letty Mortensen and…
Modern Times

The Price of Fame Thinking of dating a supermodel? Here’s what to expect

By Paul Campbell
Read On
Northern Exposure

Black at Night and Read All Over Though Iceland is smaller than many American cities, it has one of the largest per capita publishing industries in the world. Could it all be because of the dark?

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
Style

Circus Act At the couture collections in Paris, the dazzling runway shows were met with even more frenzied activity on the streets

written and illustrated by
David Downton
5
“Couture is having fun,” said Giorgio Armani. And the guests at Armani Privé felt it.
At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by a dress that Christian Dior debuted in 1952.
A ballet influence was on full display at Virginie Viard’s Chanel.
At Fendi, Kim Jones’s clothing was accompanied by eyewear from Delfina Delettrez Fendi.
Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli is a colorist to rival Matisse.
Read On
Listen

The True Story Behind Feud: Capote vs. the Swans On this week’s podcast, Sam Kashner reveals why the writer “built an atomic bomb” that destroyed his life

Read On
Wartime Tourism

A Hard Landing Until October 7, Tel Aviv’s tourism industry was booming. As the conflict rages on, is there any hope for a rebound?

By Mark Ellwood
Read On
Charm Offensive

The Cuteness Curse There’s a thin line between cuddly and creepy, according to a new exhibition at Somerset House in London

By Stuart Heritage
Read On
Small Talk
Track & Field & Stream magazine.
Track & Field & Stream magazine.
Film

The Other Side This year’s Oscar favorite, Jonathan Glazer’s radical re-invention of the Holocaust film, The Zone of Interest, is told from the point of view of the perpetrators

By Ed Potton
Read On
Books
Tobias Grey On

Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See

by Bianca Bosker
Read On
Pico Iyer On

American Mother

by Colum McCann with Diane Foley
Read On
Small Talk
“Look, I can’t talk, dude—Megan is leaving me and—what? I can still draft Aaron Judge? What about Ohtani? Check. I’ll hold.”
“Look, I can’t talk, dude—Megan is leaving me and—what? I can still draft Aaron Judge? What about Ohtani? Check. I’ll hold.”
Eight Questions

One Thing Ledes to Another The longtime New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin discusses his early years in journalism, humor in the Internet era, and his new essay collection, The Lede

By Jim Kelly
Read On
Photography

Magnum Opus A new book celebrates the history and legacy of the Magnum Photos cooperative with work by Eve Arnold, Werner Bischof, René Burri, Martin Parr, and Alessandra Sanguinetti

12
Sammy Davis Jr., photographed by Burt Glinn in Manhattan in 1959.
Photographed by Martin Parr in Rimini, Italy, in 1999.
Top, the dressing room at the Beijing Opera, photographed by Hiroji Kubota in 1979; above, an intervened photograph taken by Yael Martínez in Acapulco in 2021.
Photographed by René Burri in Sicily in 1956.
Photographed by Alessandra Sanguinetti in Buenos Aires in 1999.
Photographed by Matt Black in El Paso, Texas, in 2015.
Top, photographed by Constantine Manos in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1997; above, photographed by Jean Gaumy in Grande Rivière, Martinique, in 1979.
Photographed by Eve Arnold in 1979.
Top, photographed by Enri Canaj in Tiranë, Albania, in 2012; above, photographed by Werner Bischof in Kaesong, Korea, in 1952.
Photographed by Rafał Milach in Warsaw in 2020.
Top, photographed by Emin Özmen in Arbīl, Iraq, in 2017; above, photographed by Newsha Tavakolian in Tehran in 2010.
Photographed by Christopher Anderson in Corsica in 2016.
Read On
Close-up

Ron Yan With Tolo, his first solo restaurant, the New York City chef brings together several Chinese cuisines in one menu

By Nina Friend
Read On
Theater

The Princess and the Pie Shop Sutton Foster bounces from the Encores! Once upon a Mattress straight to Broadway’s hit revival of Sweeney Todd

By Matthew Gurewitsch
Read On
Highlight
A 1958 self-portrait by Frank Auerbach.

Hot Coals

Frank Auerbach’s 1958 Self-Portrait confronts viewers with roughly treated paper that has been torn and patched, its repeated erasures and reworkings lending the artist’s visage a phantom yet piercing quality. The shape of the eyes, mouth, and nose are exquisitely rendered, but the face’s inscrutable gaze remains the artist’s secret. The portrait was created with charcoal, a Renaissance medium used for the underdrawings of paintings, and it is with charcoal that Auerbach pushed drawing beyond conventional limits. READ ON

A 1958 self-portrait by Frank Auerbach. Read On
Small Talk
View With a Room

Under the Umbrian Sun A 12th-century monastery finds new life as Vocabolo Moscatelli, an idyllic retreat for style-minded travelers

By Michael Hainey
Read On
Marcellus Hall’s Sketchbook
Winter light: long shadows, (slightly) longer days.
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

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Writers at Large

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OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

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In Memoriam

Peter Bogdanovich Duncan Hannah Douglas McGrath Richard David Story André Leon Talley

Issue No. 238
February 3, 2024
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Issue No. 238
February 3, 2024
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