Junior high is tough for everyone. Shifting friendships! Being stuck somewhere between childhood and adolescence! All those hormones! If you’re lucky, you don’t also have to manage a parent who thinks they can backseat-drive you through all the challenges that come with being 13.
This week, we’re off to a prestigious private school in the West Village, where our friend-of-a-friend Ellen will have to figure out how involved she wants to get in her daughter’s eighth-grade fundraising competition. Unfortunately, it seems like Ellen’s mom-nemesis, Hazel, has no intention of playing by the rules. Would it be moral to just let Hazel get away with that?
Our guest this week is Vinson Cunningham! Vinson Cunningham works at The New Yorker, writing about theatre, television, and more. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2024. He’s also a co-host of Critics at Large, The New Yorker’s weekly podcast about culture and the arts. His début novel Great Expectations came out in 2024.
Vinson brought Rachelle some gossip about a high-school troublemaker, and then Rachelle brought Vinson a tale of a fundraising competition at a wealthy private school—which means, of course, that this is really a fundraising competition between the parents.
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