The Washington Post - USA (2021-12-22)

BY RON CHARLES

A few weeks ago, I noticed water

pooling in our basement. Ever the opti-

mist, I pretended it

was just rain leaking

in, but then I saw toilet

paper floating by.

It could have been

worse. Real estate, af-

ter all, is the founda-

tion of gothic horror.

From the Castle of

Otranto to the House

of Usher to those aban-

doned buildings that

you definitely should

not investigate at

night, the call is al-

ways coming from in-

side the house!

That warning is true for Jenni Fagan’s

deliciously weird new novel, “Lucken-

booth.” As this Scottish author did in her

unnerving debut, “The Panopticon,” and

her dystopic follow-up, “The Sunlight

Pilgrims,” Fagan once again examines the

way people are affected by unhealthy

spaces. Having survived the state care

system that bounced her among dozens

of homes, she writes about placement

and displacement with an arresting mix

of insight and passion.

“Luckenbooth” starts in 1910 and

creeps across the 20th century on cloven

feet. In t he opening section, a poor young

woman named Jessie MacRae says good-

bye to her father’s corpse and rows

around the North Sea in a coffin. “How

buoyant such a thing can be,” she says,

but buoyancy is not my first concern

here. Clearly, she’s leaving behind a rath-

er troubled (and thoroughly dead) family.

SEE BOOK WORLD ON C2

BOOK WORLD

M r. Hyde sells

his daughter

t o Mr. Worse

LUCKENBOOTH

By Jenni Fagan

Pegasus.

352 pp. $26

KLMNO

Style

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22 , 2021. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C

Yes, Hillary cries. She cries delivering her “would-be”

presidential acceptance speech while invoking her moth-

er.

But the bigger surprise in Bill and Hillary Clinton’s

new MasterClasses is that hers is nearly a third longer.

The former president is a virtuoso of logorrhea who

delivered one of history’s longest State of the Union

addresses. His is a taut 21 / 2 hours in 14 bite-size lessons,

while hers is almost an hour longer with 16. They are

separate but not equal.

Less astonishing (okay, not astonishing at all) is that

Hillary appears to have prepared far harder for her class.

It also includes bonus lessons and arrives fortified with

zippy decoupage graphics, plus more historical footage

and inspirational oomph.

The Clintons are the first entries in the MasterClass

White House collection, with George W. and Laura Bush,

Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright alighting in

2022. The Obamas, with their empire of content, are
      reportedly on the company’s wish list. Amanda Gorman
      and Mariah Carey will also teach classes. In January and
      February, MasterClass will expand its “Black History,
      Black Freedom, and Black Love” course with contribu-
      tions from Nikole Hannah-Jones and Cornel West,
      among others.
      Our hand is up. Why?
      Why are the Clintons doing this? You don’t need more
      exposure or to pad your résumé when it includes former
      leader of the free world. Perhaps it’s the joy of pedagogy
      SEE MEMO ON C3

BY KAREN HELLER

MEMO

Comparative Clintonology

We took Bill and Hillary’s MasterClasses. Guess who seemed more prepared.

PHOTOS BY MASTERCLASS

BY DAVID BETANCOURT

AND MICHAEL CAVNA

This story contains spoilers for vari-
ous Spider-Man movies.

Spider-Man has one of the most color-
ful rogues’ galleries around, but some of
the webcrawler’s villains have gotten
short shrift on the big screen.
With the release of “Spider-Man: No
Way Home,” which earned $260 million
domestically over the weekend, at least
some of the previously underserved bad-
dies get their just due. Whether or not
they renounce their evil ways in the new
movie from director Jon Watts, at the
least they are largely redeemed as cin-
ematic creatures worthy of their comic-
book adaptations.
Lizard, Rhino and Harry Osborn’s
New Goblin, among others, can’t crack
our list — keep trying, fellas. Here are our

top six villains across this Spider-Man

franchise’s eight live-action solo movies.

6. Sandman (Thomas Haden Church)
   Sam Raimi, director of To bey Magu-
   ire’s Spidey trilogy that helped jump-
   start modern superhero movies, loves
   the classic villains from ’60s comics, and
   you could tell he had affection for the
   plot-pivotal Sandman in “Spider-Man 3.”
   Church, coming off a breakthrough
   turn in 2004’s “Sideways,” humanized
   Flint Marko, the father who became a
   beast due to a tragic accident. And
   Maguire spent so much of “Spider-Man
   3” in his black-suit bad mood, we could
   contend that Sandman — thanks to
   Church’s textured performance — was
   the most human person in that movie.
   Yet in “No Way Home,” Sandman is
   bedeviled by the same issue that con-
   strained his presence in “Spider-Man 3”:
   SEE VILLAINS ON C5

The Malevolent Six: Top Spider-Man movie villains ranked

J MAIDMENT/COLUMBIA/MARVEL/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland in 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”

BOOK WORLD

In “Bright Burning Things,” an

alcoholic must choose between

drinking and her young son. C2

FOX NEWS

Fauci says host Jesse Watters

should be fired for “ambush”

and “kill shot” comments. C3

THEATER REVIEW

230 scrolling dioramas tell the

story of Afghan brothers on a

harrowing journey to London. C3

BY INKOO KANG

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been

advised that hostility toward the vaccine-

hesitant won’t persuade them to seek

immunization any faster; it might even

make them dig in their heels. Perhaps

that’s why President Biden gave an even-

handed (if blunt) speech in a televised

address to the nation Tuesday as the

omicron variant spreads throughout the

country and questions swirl about how

best to celebrate the holidays this year.

Te mpering earlier language about “a

winter of severe illness and death — if

you’re unvaccinated — for themselves,

their families, and the hospitals they’ll

soon overwhelm,” Biden i nstead sought t o

provide reassurance and answers. Stand-

ing in front of a fireplace and Christmas

decorations in the White House’s State

Dining Room, he softened his occasional

brusqueness with a forced quarter-smile,

appearing authoritative b ut not o verbear-

ing.

Though his periodic teleprompter f um-

bles detracted somewhat from the air of

competence h e strove t o project, the p resi-

dent couldn’t be clearer in his messaging:

Get vaccinated to protect yourself and

your loved ones from the latest version of

the coronavirus.

“I want to start by acknowledging how

tired, worried and frustrated I know you

are,” Biden b egan in a s peech that s werved

between individual empathy, p atriotic up-

lift and straight-talking frustration. “For

SEE NOTEBOOK ON C4

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

President’s

message could

not be clearer