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Margaret Drabble photographed by Nancy Crampton.
This week at The Paris Review, we’re thinking about family bonds, in anticipation of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Read on for an Art of Fiction interview with Margaret Drabble, Tama Janowitz’s short story “American Dad,” Jeffrey Yang’s poem “Ancestors,” and a portfolio of photographs, “Iranian Family Portraits,” by Mohsen Rastani.
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Interview Margaret Drabble, The Art of Fiction No. 70 Issue no. 74 (Fall-Winter 1978)
My sister and I are very similar. She’s a novelist and our lives have been parallel in many ways. She has been an important part of my life. One’s relationship with one’s siblings and parents is something that you’re going to write about again and again, in different forms.
GYPSIES WITH THEIR PRIZE POSSESSIONS.
Fiction American Dad By Tama Jamowitz Issue no. 80 (Summer 1981)
As we carried the bags of groceries in from the car the phone rang, my father called, telling me he was coming to Boston for a psychiatric convention. I picked up the phone and swung the receiver, with its extra long cord, over my shoulder, so that I could unload groceries while I talked. “Yes? Yes?” I said, “Saturday? Okay, sure. So how long is the psychiatric convention?” “Just the weekend. It’s on treating mental illness with drugs.” “Well, that sounds interesting,” I said. Actually, I didn’t see how it could be interesting for my father—he didn’t even believe in mental illness, let alone that it might be chemically based.
As we carried the bags of groceries in from the car the phone rang, my father called, telling me he was coming to Boston for a psychiatric convention. I picked up the phone and swung the receiver, with its extra long cord, over my shoulder, so that I could unload groceries while I talked. “Yes? Yes?” I said, “Saturday? Okay, sure. So how long is the psychiatric convention?”
“Just the weekend. It’s on treating mental illness with drugs.”
“Well, that sounds interesting,” I said. Actually, I didn’t see how it could be interesting for my father—he didn’t even believe in mental illness, let alone that it might be chemically based.
VILLAGERS FROM THE ELBURZ MOUNTAINS.
Poetry Ancestors By Jeffrey Yang Issue no. 231 (Winter 2019)
Chance progression Genomic drift Split-apart generations of the uprooted tree abandoned the tablets for another ethos Ancestors never spoke of our ancestors
Chance progression
Genomic drift
Split-apart generations of the uprooted tree
abandoned the tablets for another ethos
Ancestors
never spoke of our ancestors
MRS. SEYHOON, GRANDMOTHER.
Art Iranian Family Portraits By Mohsen Rastani Issue no. 186 (Fall 2008)
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