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The Devil Problem
David Remnick's previous book, Lenin's Tomb , was a razor-sharp portrayal of both the rulers and the ruled in the closing days of the Soviet Union. The Devil Problem pulls together profiles of athletes and politicians at the end of their careers (Reggie Jackson, Gary Hart), writers thriving in exile (Joseph Brodsky) and struggling in their homeland (Ralph Ellison), and scholars searching for the very origin of the devil (Elaine Pagels). Especially devastating is a profile of radio talk show host Mario Cuomo, who clearly preferred life as Governor of New York. These pieces previously appeared in Esquire , the Washington Post , and the New Yorker .
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
David Remnick
220 books383 followersDavid Remnick (born October 29, 1958) is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin s Tomb The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named Editor of the Year by Advertising Age in 2000. Before joining The New Yorker, Remnick was a reporter and the Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post. He has also served on the New York Public Library’s board of trustees. In 2010 he published his sixth book, The Bridge The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.
Remnick was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of a dentist, Edward C. Remnick, and an art teacher, Barbara (Seigel). He was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey, in a secular Jewish home with, he has said, “a lot of books around.” He is also childhood friends with comedian Bill Maher. He graduated from Princeton University in 1981 with an A.B. in comparative literature; there, he met writer John McPhee and helped found The Nassau Weekly. Remnick has implied that after college he wanted to write novels, but due to his parents’ illnesses, he needed a paying job—there was no trust fund to rely on. Remnick wanted to be a writer, so he chose a career in journalism, taking a job at The Washington Post. He is married to reporter Esther Fein of The New York Times and has three children, Alex, Noah, and Natasha. He enjoys jazz music and classic cinema and is fluent in Russian.
He began his reporting career at The Washington Post in 1982 shortly after his graduation from Princeton. His first assignment was to cover the United States Football League. After six years, in 1988, he became the newspaper’s Moscow correspondent, which provided him with the material for Lenin's Tomb. He also received the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism.
Remnick became a staff writer at The New Yorker in September, 1992, after ten years at The Washington Post.
Remnick’s 1997 New Yorker article “Kid Dynamite Blows Up,” about boxer Mike Tyson, was nominated for a National Magazine Award. In 1998 he became editor, succeeding Tina Brown. Remnick promoted Hendrik Hertzberg, a former Jimmy Carter speechwriter and former editor of The New Republic, to write the lead pieces in “Talk of the Town,” the magazine’s opening section. In 2005 Remnick earned $1 million for his work as the magazine’s editor.
In 2003 he wrote an editorial supporting the Iraq war in the days when it started. In 2004, for the first time in its 80-year history, The New Yorker endorsed a presidential candidate, John Kerry.
In May 2009, Remnick was featured in a long-form Twitter account of Dan Baum’s career as a New Yorker staff writer. The tweets, written over the course of a week, described the difficult relationship between Baum and Remnick, his editor.
Remnick’s biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge, was released on April 6, 2010. It features hundreds of interviews with friends, colleagues, and other witnesses to Obama’s rise to the presidency of the United States. The book has been widely reviewed in journals.
In 2010 Remnick lent his support to the campaign urging the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of ordering the murder of her husband by her lover and adultery.
In 2013 Remnick ’81 was the guest speaker at Princeton University Class Day.
Remnick provided guest commentary and contributed to NBC coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia including the opening ceremony and commentary for NBC News.
Remnick was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, the son of a dentist, Edward C. Remnick, and an art teacher, Barbara (Seigel). He was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey, in a secular Jewish home with, he has said, “a lot of books around.” He is also childhood friends with comedian Bill Maher. He graduated from Princeton University in 1981 with an A.B. in comparative literature; there, he met writer John McPhee and helped found The Nassau Weekly. Remnick has implied that after college he wanted to write novels, but due to his parents’ illnesses, he needed a paying job—there was no trust fund to rely on. Remnick wanted to be a writer, so he chose a career in journalism, taking a job at The Washington Post. He is married to reporter Esther Fein of The New York Times and has three children, Alex, Noah, and Natasha. He enjoys jazz music and classic cinema and is fluent in Russian.
He began his reporting career at The Washington Post in 1982 shortly after his graduation from Princeton. His first assignment was to cover the United States Football League. After six years, in 1988, he became the newspaper’s Moscow correspondent, which provided him with the material for Lenin's Tomb. He also received the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism.
Remnick became a staff writer at The New Yorker in September, 1992, after ten years at The Washington Post.
Remnick’s 1997 New Yorker article “Kid Dynamite Blows Up,” about boxer Mike Tyson, was nominated for a National Magazine Award. In 1998 he became editor, succeeding Tina Brown. Remnick promoted Hendrik Hertzberg, a former Jimmy Carter speechwriter and former editor of The New Republic, to write the lead pieces in “Talk of the Town,” the magazine’s opening section. In 2005 Remnick earned $1 million for his work as the magazine’s editor.
In 2003 he wrote an editorial supporting the Iraq war in the days when it started. In 2004, for the first time in its 80-year history, The New Yorker endorsed a presidential candidate, John Kerry.
In May 2009, Remnick was featured in a long-form Twitter account of Dan Baum’s career as a New Yorker staff writer. The tweets, written over the course of a week, described the difficult relationship between Baum and Remnick, his editor.
Remnick’s biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge, was released on April 6, 2010. It features hundreds of interviews with friends, colleagues, and other witnesses to Obama’s rise to the presidency of the United States. The book has been widely reviewed in journals.
In 2010 Remnick lent his support to the campaign urging the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of ordering the murder of her husband by her lover and adultery.
In 2013 Remnick ’81 was the guest speaker at Princeton University Class Day.
Remnick provided guest commentary and contributed to NBC coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia including the opening ceremony and commentary for NBC News.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 23, 2007
So I'm new to goodreads, sue me, but based on early returns, I should probably climb off Remnick's jock.. soz., but Dude can write. I am actually a little sad that this is the first rating for this anthology.
In any event, The Devil Problem: And Other True Stories captures Remnick at his best, and in turn, offers its readers some of the finest long-form, narrative journalism ever committed to paper.
Whether its painting the picture of Reggie Jackson's swan song—read: alone, taking BP in an empty stadium, baking under the Arizona Sun—or climbing inside one of Al Neuharth's editorial meetings at USA Today—there's a great quote about what deserves to be above the fold, but I don't want to give it away; here's a hint though, it involves breasts—Remnick redefines the rather tame/lame term of "general interest" journalism.
Murray Kempton would be proud.
Every other hack should be jealous.
In any event, The Devil Problem: And Other True Stories captures Remnick at his best, and in turn, offers its readers some of the finest long-form, narrative journalism ever committed to paper.
Whether its painting the picture of Reggie Jackson's swan song—read: alone, taking BP in an empty stadium, baking under the Arizona Sun—or climbing inside one of Al Neuharth's editorial meetings at USA Today—there's a great quote about what deserves to be above the fold, but I don't want to give it away; here's a hint though, it involves breasts—Remnick redefines the rather tame/lame term of "general interest" journalism.
Murray Kempton would be proud.
Every other hack should be jealous.
March 9, 2008
i'm so on david remnick's jock.
November 12, 2011
Great profiles from the New Yorker. Hamlet in Hollywood alone makes this worth reading for its account of a Hollywood producer in a lawsuit with a college professor over who has the rights to the idea that Hamlet is a coded play about Martin Luther. Also not to be missed: News in a Dying Language , about the Yiddish New York paper the Jewish Daily Forward. "...the slant is often so acute that one anticipates the millennium headline WORLD ENDS YESTERDAY; JEWS SUFFER MOST."
Read
February 3, 2024Actually all I have read was 'The Devil Problem' which was a New Yorker essay April 3, 1995. It is a superb commentary about Elaine Pagel's book The Gnostic Gospels published in 1979. It was Pagel's analysis of a series of ancient documents known collectively as the Nag Hammadi Library. p. 54 in the New Yorker. "Gnosticism with its emphasis on individual divinity and unmediated personal communion, was a threat to the authority of bishops and priests. Its suggestion for instance that the
Resurrection of Jesus was a mythological vision, rather than, as the Synoptic Gospels suggests, an historical event, was intolerable, and so was the Gnostic notion that God was both the father and the mother of Jesus......." p.54.
"...although all kinds of angels frequent the Hebrew Bible, demonic beings are nearly absent;"...p. 56
For the Gospel writers, the first enemy was the 'intimate enemy"- the majority of their fellow Jews, who did not follow Christ....Demonization is crucial to the language and thinking of fundamentalists from Pat Robertson to the Ayatollahs; in the Gulf war it was present in the rhetoric of both Saddam Hussein and George Bush. Demonization is also present even in secular fundamentalisms: Lenin's rhetoric, his prediction of a global victory over the capitalist infidels, borrows from the religious tradition he promised to bury."
Early Christianity was open toward women, but by the year 200, women were confined to certain expectations as seen in the First Epistle of Timothy: 'Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men, she is to keep silent.'
"Pagels claims that the New Testament Satan has a role in the development of anti-Semitism."
"the figure of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, grows more benign with each successive
Gospel;"
Resurrection of Jesus was a mythological vision, rather than, as the Synoptic Gospels suggests, an historical event, was intolerable, and so was the Gnostic notion that God was both the father and the mother of Jesus......." p.54.
"...although all kinds of angels frequent the Hebrew Bible, demonic beings are nearly absent;"...p. 56
For the Gospel writers, the first enemy was the 'intimate enemy"- the majority of their fellow Jews, who did not follow Christ....Demonization is crucial to the language and thinking of fundamentalists from Pat Robertson to the Ayatollahs; in the Gulf war it was present in the rhetoric of both Saddam Hussein and George Bush. Demonization is also present even in secular fundamentalisms: Lenin's rhetoric, his prediction of a global victory over the capitalist infidels, borrows from the religious tradition he promised to bury."
Early Christianity was open toward women, but by the year 200, women were confined to certain expectations as seen in the First Epistle of Timothy: 'Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men, she is to keep silent.'
"Pagels claims that the New Testament Satan has a role in the development of anti-Semitism."
"the figure of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, grows more benign with each successive
Gospel;"
February 14, 2023
Highlights here: The Devil Problem(about Elaine Pagels book on early Christians choosing to demonize those with other beliefs), Unforgiven (on Alger Hiss), The situationist(on Marion Berry's ability to come back despite all his misbehavior), Belfast confetti(on Gerry Adams), A father & his son(Kenzaburo & Hikari Oe), The last gent(on Murray Kempton), Dr Wilson's neighborh0od(on Wm Julius Wilson); also quite good: Winter on the mtn(on Gary Hart after the scandal ended his presidential run), Last of the red hots(on Ben Bradlee), Negative capability(on Mario Cuomo..seems rather prescient now), Hamlet in H’wood, Sept Song of Mr Oct(on Reggie Jackson)
January 13, 2022
Lost of cool shit, mostly New Yorker pieces from the 80s and 90s. Whether writing about heroes (including his own, like Murray Kempton), taking down others', (like Gerry Adams) or villains (like Al Neuharth), trying to come to grips with some enigmas (Mario Cuomo, Alger Hiss) or or just telling compelling stories (Elaine Pagels), Remnick brings a sharp eye, clean prose and a (usually) fairly objective perspective to some of the most important figure of our time. Net-net, it's top flight journalism, just as he's stewarding at the New Yorker right now.
July 17, 2019
This was a delight. Remnick is an informed, perceptive and urbane writer who's profiles from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's (almost all published in The New Yorker) are still relevant. I got the book for the profile of Alger Hiss, but Remnick's piece on Gary Hart was worth the price of admission. Hart's was the first public life to be "cancelled" - before the word even existed.
July 15, 2020
David Remnick provides the textbook definition of how to write journalistic personality profiles. No matter the subject, Remnick never fails to interest the reader. Although these profiles are old, most written in the mid-90s, they are imperative reading for anyone interested in writing personality profiles. Or for anyone interested in reading exceptional writing.
February 6, 2022
Elegantly written portraits of noteworthy people, some of whose noteworthiness has since faced (does anyone under 35 remember Marion Barry? Does anyone under 40 remember Gary Hart?).
Fortunately, Remnick is a skillful summarizer, wry and surgical. Yes, his piece on Michael Jordan is great; how could it not be? But he’s even better on Murray Kempton.
Fortunately, Remnick is a skillful summarizer, wry and surgical. Yes, his piece on Michael Jordan is great; how could it not be? But he’s even better on Murray Kempton.
November 5, 2017
The usual absolutely brilliant writing of David Remnick
July 31, 2020
long form journalism at its best.
September 2, 2022
It's kind of cool to read this book 20-30 years after these pieces were published, because you can look up and find out "whatever happened to"... and now you know The Rest of the Story!
September 28, 2023
Brilliant collection of essays mostly from the 80's & 90's. superb writing.
October 20, 2024
Dated now, but still interesting.
June 29, 2025
The profiles of Marion Barry, Gerry Adams, and William Julius Wilson are especially strong.
September 17, 2017
Sort of like a 'best of' compilation of David's investigative and longform journalism - covering lots of different things happening in lots of different places. Some of the segments were more compelling to me than others - the bit on Northern Ireland particularly. You can see why the man won a Pulitzer!
April 13, 2022
When it comes to writing, what I always struggle the most with is keeping my characters not only consistent but also, able to give that feeling that they can be (in some parallel universe) real. Or at least, that they won't come across as cardboard pieces of some re-used tropes. And it's a tricky think to pull off. So tricky, I don't normally get it right or I don't get them as I thought they would be (cause, you know , writing can be a tiny tiny frustrating bussiness.)
But this book showed me that sometimes, it can take just the right words put in the right place at the right time to do the trick.
Short-profiling is probably an art not every journalist can pull off, but David Remnick is so brilliant at it, it looks almost effortless. And that is because he gets those right words in all the right places with an easiness I could envy if I weren't such a nice person.
This book was a joy to read, not only when it comes to characterisation. It takes an assemble of different (yet always real) people, one after another, showing how they are and how they try to be, how the world sees them and how they see themselves and it works. It works with every one of them, regardless if you care about the life of politicians, academics, basketball players or other reporters.
It has earned swiftly those four stars by its use of words and perhaps a dash of half a star more just for having put the Michael Jordan profile right after Kenzaburo Oe's.
But this book showed me that sometimes, it can take just the right words put in the right place at the right time to do the trick.
Short-profiling is probably an art not every journalist can pull off, but David Remnick is so brilliant at it, it looks almost effortless. And that is because he gets those right words in all the right places with an easiness I could envy if I weren't such a nice person.
This book was a joy to read, not only when it comes to characterisation. It takes an assemble of different (yet always real) people, one after another, showing how they are and how they try to be, how the world sees them and how they see themselves and it works. It works with every one of them, regardless if you care about the life of politicians, academics, basketball players or other reporters.
It has earned swiftly those four stars by its use of words and perhaps a dash of half a star more just for having put the Michael Jordan profile right after Kenzaburo Oe's.
October 16, 2015
This collection of profiles was lent to me by a professor, and as a journalism student this book was amazing!
Remnick effortlessly portrays both the character and personality of the person he's profiling, but also deftly explains the issues surrounding them and their contribution to the world at large. Because this book was published in 1990, a lot of these figures and issues have faded away from the public's consciousness so in reading this book I learned a lot about politics and culture that I hadn't been exposed to.
My favorite profiles were Alger Hiss, and the title essay "The Devil Problem." Journalism is powerful, and Remnick is a master at his craft.
Remnick effortlessly portrays both the character and personality of the person he's profiling, but also deftly explains the issues surrounding them and their contribution to the world at large. Because this book was published in 1990, a lot of these figures and issues have faded away from the public's consciousness so in reading this book I learned a lot about politics and culture that I hadn't been exposed to.
My favorite profiles were Alger Hiss, and the title essay "The Devil Problem." Journalism is powerful, and Remnick is a master at his craft.
September 21, 2012
Read parts of it--OK. Sort of classic New Yorker-style profiles that don't really go anywhere and aren't especially illuminating.
July 21, 2016
Remarkable writing for outstanding stories.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews