The Devil Problem: And Other True Stories

Overview

David Remnick's 1996 collection gathers a dozen long-form pieces that move fluidly between reportage and literary profile, offering a panorama of late 20th-century public life through the prism of individual character. The essays, drawn from years of Remnick's journalism, turn attention to figures and episodes that reveal larger political and cultural currents, from Washington and New York to broader international scenes. Each piece operates as both portrait and interrogation, inviting readers to weigh charisma against consequence and anecdote against analysis.
The title signals a recurring concern with moral complexity. Remnick treats public figures as human engines of influence: they charm and inspire, they baffle and enrage. Rather than settle for tidy verdicts, the writing lingers on contradictions, making the collection less a book of conclusions than a set of finely observed questions about power, responsibility, and the unpredictable ways private temperament shapes public events.

Subjects and Themes

The range of subjects is wide: politicians and pundits, writers and athletes, movers in the worlds of culture and conflict. Remnick privileges moments where biography and history intersect, showing how a single personality can illuminate broader social anxieties and institutional shifts. Recurring themes include the fragility of authority, the spectacle of fame, and the moral ambiguities that arise when individual ambition meets structural power.
Political life and cultural production are often shown in dialogue. Profiles of public intellectuals, journalists, and artists are paired with pieces on the theater of politics and the backstage dramas of sports and celebrity. The result is a mosaic in which personal narrative sheds light on public trends, how speechmakers shape policy, how literary reputations are forged, how athletic heroics become national myths.

Style and Approach

Remnick's prose combines anecdotal richness with analytical clarity. Scenes are composed with a novelist's eye for gesture and atmosphere, while the reporting remains disciplined and skeptical. Dialogue and physical detail are used not for ornament but to excavate character; a throwaway line or a mannerism can become the hinge on which an essay turns. This blend of empathy and scrutiny lets the reader inhabit portraits without losing sight of their broader implications.
The essays avoid polemic, favoring instead narrative accumulation. Patterns emerge through repeated attention to motive and consequence rather than through overt argumentation. That technique allows moral complexity to stand: heroes and villains are neither flattened nor excused, and ambiguity is treated as a signpost rather than a problem to be resolved.

Impact and Reception

The collection helped cement Remnick's reputation as one of the leading literary journalists of his generation, admired for stylistic polish and intellectual range. Critics tended to praise the humane curiosity that animates the essays and the capacity to make distant events feel immediate through precise reporting. Readers drawn to long-form narrative journalism find in these pieces a model of how personality-driven stories can illuminate social history.
Beyond its initial publication, the book endures as an example of profile writing that respects complexity while remaining accessible. The essays reward rereading: the compositional care reveals itself in accumulation, and the moral inquiries embedded in each portrait linger after the specifics fade. The collection is as much an anatomy of public life in a particular era as it is a showcase for a distinctive reporting voice.