This story had an interesting structure. It had "chapters" where first, the principle narrator talked about Conor and Tony from her own perspective, and then the story switched, kind of, into Tony's perspective as he told his stories. They weren't quite what I was expecting, but they were pretty interesting. I just felt like the story didn't say much even though it was clearly trying to say something.

Corey is a high-class financier, who lives Trump's policies, just not Trump as a person. Tony is the opposite: a working class Marine-turned police officer who lives Trump for his personality more so than his policies. The narrator sits it between, clearly comfortable with both men but also sort of judgemental in what they believe in. She's a writer and the best of Conor's 4 wives, at least says Tony.

It references the COVID pandemic, one of the first stories that I have read that brings it into context. But it does so as a passerby, two sentences that nobody really believes in it and then it's no linger part of the story. Again, why mention it unless you were trying to describe the sort of person that Curtis was trying to describe.

I just that that the profiles kind of fell short. We were introduced to the ideas of the men, but then kind if left hanging, even though that was one of the early parts of the story. It felt as if we were supposed to be shown some morale, and then were not, and instead shown bizarre stories about Tony's life that were hedonistic more than anything else.

Also in this fiction issue was Unread Messages by Sally Rooney, which I thought was a much stronger piece, but also lacking for the fantastic ones published by Hemingway and Murakami last year.