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Friendships from The Paris Review

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From the Archive

Here’s a short and lovely video for a Friday afternoon. Rose Styron, the wife of the late William Styron, recalls the earlier days of The Paris Review, and the parties that the Styrons used to throw. “We had the John Marquands,” she says, “The Peter Matthiessens, the Tom Guinzburgs, and George Plimpton. We were all a gang, and had a wonderful time.” What a vibrant literary life! And what friendships! Her memories remind me of the touching speech Philip Roth gave at our Revel this year to accept the Hadada Award. Roth describes his first visit to New York to meet Plimpton, and how he made friends with the magazine’s young editors and writers. The result? “This time I sent my story not to The Paris Review slush pile, from which I’d been plucked first time around by none other than Rose Styron, but right to the top.”