Natan Last was 16 years old, born deaf in one ear, when he became the youngest person ever to construct a crossword puzzle for the New York Times Sunday magazine. Now 35, he has written a book arguing that those black-and-white grids are anything but innocent.
Last arrives at Vroman’s Bookstore on Tuesday evening to discuss “Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle,” a new book that asks uncomfortable questions about who gets to decide what counts as common knowledge in America.
He will be joined in conversation by Emmy-nominated comedy writer Megan Amram, best known for her work on NBC’s “The Good Place.”
The timing seems fitting.
According to Last’s book, 36 million Americans now solve crosswords at least once a week, and nearly 23 million solve them daily — a surge that began during the COVID-19 lockdown, when puzzles became “another kind of refuge.” Yet the seemingly apolitical pastime, Last argues, has never been more contested.
“Every crossword says,’Here are the things you need to know to go be a person in the world,'” Last explains, describing the philosophy of constructor Laura Bronstein. The question of who decides which words belong in those grids — and which perspectives get treated as “normal” versus “obscure” — lies at the heart of his book.
Last’s own biography embodies the crossword’s contradictions. By day, he works as an immigration policy advocate, having served with the United Nations, the International Rescue Committee, and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. By night, he constructs bimonthly puzzles for The New Yorker, threading references to DACA, decolonization leaders, and Swahili words into grids dominated by what he calls “Germanic consonant-heavy words.”
His fascination with language began early. Growing up in Brooklyn’s diverse Flatbush neighborhood, Last learned to lip read to compensate for his hearing loss — an experience that shaped his understanding of words as visual objects, not just sounds. “The grid is physical,” he told the Boston Globe. “The letters are there because they work, like construction material.”
His mother, an immigrant who grew up speaking Hebrew, was “learning English while I was a wee lad,” Last has said. Her “spotty English” but “robust storytelling” sparked his sense that language could be approached from multiple angles at once.
After interning with famed New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz during college, Last became a fixture in the puzzle world — even as he pursued a master’s degree in public policy at Columbia and built a career in refugee resettlement.
The book divides into three sections — “Crosswords Should Be Data,” “Crosswords Should Be a Soapbox,” and “Crosswords Should Be Art” — tracking the puzzle’s evolution from a 1913 newspaper novelty to a modern cultural phenomenon.
Critics have embraced it: the Chicago Review of Books declared it “should be at the top of every gift guide for word nerds,” while Stefan Fatsis, author of “Word Freak,” called it “a gridful of insight and pleasure.”
Last remains skeptical that artificial intelligence will replace human constructors anytime soon.
“AI is advancing by leaps and bounds,” he acknowledged in a recent interview,”but it’s still not doing puns very well or coming up with word themes. It’s not clever, it’s not interested in dual meanings.”
His conversation partner brings her own wordplay credentials. Amram, who has written for “Parks and Recreation” and “Silicon Valley” in addition to “The Good Place,” created the meta-comedy web series “An Emmy for Megan,” which earned two Emmy nominations by documenting her own quest to win an Emmy.
The event takes place at a venue with its own claim to literary history. Founded in 1894 by photographer Adam Clark Vroman — nearly two decades before Arthur Wynne invented the crossword puzzle in 1913 — Vroman’s Bookstore is Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore. During World War II, the store donated and delivered books to Japanese Americans interned at nearby camps including Manzanar.
Natan Last discusses and signs “Across the Universe” with Megan Amram at 7 p.m. Tuesday, January 20, at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. For more information, call 626-449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com.
