June 26, 2018 Redux Redux: In Dire Straits By The Paris Review This week, we bring you three pieces about immigration from our archive. Read Dany Laferrière’s 2017 Writers at Work interview, in which he bemoans complacency in the face of suffering; meet the narrator from a war-torn country in Gretchen Herbkersman’s short story “Thor”; and travel to impoverished Detroit, the city in which the American immigrant dream once lay, in Philip Levine’s poem “A Walk with Tom Jefferson.” Dany Laferrière, The Art of Fiction No. 237 Issue no. 222 (Fall 2017) To watch someone see you, when you are begging or homeless, and the person isn’t scandalized. He’s not happy about it, but he is thinking if someone has to be homeless, it might as well be you. If you saw that someone you went to school with had become homeless, you would be scandalized. You’d say to yourself, It can’t possibly be! But for all the others who are homeless, it can’t possibly be either! But it’s like that when you don’t know the person—you are categorized by race, or as a part of society that we accept seeing in a miserable situation. Native Americans drinking on a street corner or blacks in dire circumstances—these are things society thinks are normal. I’m not saying they accept it, but it’s something they’ve always seen. Well, I’ve been in that situation. I’ve been seen that way—He’s an immigrant and not white, and he’s in dire straits, that’s normal. There is nothing more extraordinary than seeing compassion in someone’s eyes, but not the slightest surprise at your situation. That is what it is to be a desert island, with no one to protect you—which could plunge some people into despair, bordering on insanity. But for a writer, it can be interesting. Because you can observe society, since you are completely invisible. No one sees you. People will say and do anything in front of you. Read More
June 19, 2018 Redux Redux: A Summer Month Together By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. The summer solstice is this week, so as things heat up and before the days get shorter, we bring you our interview with Kazuo Ishiguro, where he recalls his summer job as a grouse beater for the queen mother; William Gass’s nostalgia-driven short story “Summer Bees,” in which an affair is fondly remembered; and Molly Peacock’s poem “A Hot Day in Agrigento.” Kazuo Ishiguro, The Art of Fiction No. 196 Issue no. 184 (Spring 2008) My first summer after leaving school I worked for the Queen Mother at Balmoral Castle, where the royal family spend their summer holidays. In those days they used to recruit local students to be grouse beaters. The royal family would invite people to shoot on their estate. The Queen Mother and her guests would get into Land Rovers with shotguns and whiskey and drive over bits of the moor from shooting butt to shooting butt. That’s where they would aim and shoot. Fifteen of us would walk in formation across the moor, spaced about a hundred yards apart in the heather. The grouse live in the heather, and they hear us coming, and they hop. By the time we arrive at the butts, all of the grouse in the vicinity have accumulated and the Queen Mum and her friends are waiting with shotguns. Around the butts there’s no heather, so the grouse have got no choice but to fly up. Then the shooting starts. And then we walk to the next butt. It’s a bit like golf. Read More
June 12, 2018 Redux Redux: Three for Dad By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. With Father’s Day around the corner, we bring you our 1976 Art of Fiction interview with Stanley Elkin, where he credits his father with having influenced his shoptalk writing style; Benjamin Percy’s story “Refresh, Refresh,” in which a troubled teen awaits a message from his old man, who is stationed in Iraq; and Louise Erdrich’s poem “Birth.” Read More
June 5, 2018 Redux Redux: Celebrating Pride Month By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. This week, to celebrate Pride Month, we bring you our 1988 Art of Fiction interview with Edmund White, Garth Greenwell’s short story “Gospodar,” and Sappho’s poem “Prayer to Aphrodite.” Edmund White, The Art of Fiction No. 105 Issue no. 108 (Fall 1988) It was a political act for me to sign The Joy of Gay Sex at the time. The publisher could not have cared less, but for me it was a big act of coming out. Charles Silverstein, my coauthor, and I were both aware that we would be addressing a lot of people and so in that sense we were spokesmen. We always pictured our ideal reader as someone who thought he was the only homosexual in the world. States of Desire was an attempt to see the varieties of gay experience and also to suggest the enormous range of gay life to straight and gay people—to show that gays aren’t just hairdressers, they’re also petroleum engineers and ranchers and short-order cooks. Once I’d written States of Desire I felt it was important to show one gay life in particular depth, rather than all of these lives in a shorthand version. Read More
May 29, 2018 Redux Redux: Philip Roth (1933–2018) By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Philip Roth, a longtime friend and an early contributor to the magazine, died last week at age eighty-five. Roth’s influence on American letters is staggering, and it didn’t take long for the remembrances, appreciations, and obituaries to pour in from every publication imaginable. This week, to honor Roth, we bring you his Art of Fiction interview, from our Fall 1984 issue; his novella Goodbye, Columbus, from our Autumn–Winter 1958–1959 issue; and a special bonus episode of our podcast, where we share a recording of Roth’s speech from our 2010 Revel, when he was given the Hadada, our award for lifetime achievement. Read More
May 22, 2018 Redux Redux: Tom Wolfe, Barbara Grossman, and Gwyneth Lewis By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Tom Wolfe, New York City, November 2011 Tom Wolfe died last week, at eighty-eight. So today, we bring you his Art of Fiction interview. We also bring you Barbara Grossman’s tale about a young man and his house plants, “My Vegetable Love,” and Gwyneth Lewis’s poem about Florida titled “Pentecost.” Read More