Meditations on Hell – McSweeney’s Web Tendency

“I’m coming to Boston, I’m bringing hell with me.” —Tom Homan, “border czar” and former performing director of ICE – – – Hell shouldn’t be a lake of fireplace, neither is it composed of the circles Dante envisioned, like an toddler’s stacking toy. It’s not “The Dangerous Place” of sitcom fame, although it’s simple to […]


“My brother’s identify was Musa. He had a reputation. However he’ll stay ‘the Arab’ perpetually.”

“I preferred doubt.” Kamel Daoud (Photograph: Claude Truong-Ngoc, Wikimedia Commons) In Albert’s Camus’ 1942 The Stranger, a French transport clerk named Meursault shoots an Arab man on the Mediterranean seaside. Algerian creator Kamel Daoud retells Camus’ well-known story from the perspective of the useless man’s household: “My brother’s identify was Musa. He had a reputation. However he’ll stay ‘the Arab’ perpetually.”  […]