Fiction A Brief Fall by Larry Woiwode. Katherine is four months pregnant, living with her husband, Charles, in a Brooklyn Heights apartment in the mid-sixties. They met in college: she was a painter; he, an actor. Now Charles works as a copywriter for an ad agency. They have already lost one child, and the present pregnancy...

The Talk of the Town Better by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about Rudy Burckhardt, a photographer and filmmaker, whose films were accorded a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art recently, and who has a photograph on a notecard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the card shows a picture of the Flatiron Building.) Some of his works are...

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Comment Comment (Pt.II) by Philip Hamburger. Comment about the pro-choice Mobilize for Women's Lives rally held in Washington D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial. Writer describes the crowd in front of the memorial and the messages on their banners. Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, is a featured speaker, along with Dr. Etienne...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Games by Susan Orlean. Talk Story about Burt Hochberg, who is the games-and-books editor of "Games" magazine. He assembles some discerning minds every second week to consider the newest in games and contribute opinions on them for the magazine's reviews He declared 1040--a board game invented by a certified public accountant...

Annals of the Auction Block RINARD AT MANHEIM by John McPhee. ANNALS OF THE AUCTION BLOCK about the Manheim Exotic Auction in Pennsylvania. The auction is strictly wholesale--where dealers sell to other dealers. It's not an antique car show, it's a sale of modern, used exotic cars such as Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Porsches, Jaguars, Mercedes, & BMWS Sprinkled among these...

The Theatre SIR REX AND MR. MAUGHAM by Edith Oliver.

A Reporter at Large II-BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS by Mark Danner. A REPORTER AT LARGE about Haiti and Papa Doc Duvalier. Tells about the history of Haiti from the time it was settled through to the ascension of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Papa Doc's son. Tells about a land reform policy which broke up the large plantations. Today, Haiti's ratio of population...

Comment Comment (Pt. I) by Lawrence Weschler. Comment about the bifurcation in the response of this country's politicians & news media to the year's events in Eastern Europe, on the one hand, & those in Central America, on the other, as if the two had nothing to do with each other. The two sets of events have...

Books by Brad Leithauser.

Poetry Retirement by Craig Raine. The world is a beautiful woman...

Poetry A Note From Leiden by Amy Clampitt. Rain-drenched, Rhine drained...

Poetry Snails by Philip Levine. The leaves rusted in the late winds...