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, we bring you our first-ever Art of Journalism interview, with Hunter S. Thompson; Amie Barrodale’s short story “William Wei”; and Pablo Neruda’s poem “Emerging.”
You can listen to Barrodale’s story and Neruda’s poem—as well as Terry McDonell’s tale about his 1984 visit, with George Plimpton, to Thompson’s home in Colorado—in “Tomorrow’s Reason,” the latest episode of The Paris Review Podcast. If you like what you hear, tell your friends!
Hunter S. Thompson, The Art of Journalism No. 1
Issue no. 156 (Fall 2000)
Journalism is fun because it offers immediate work. You get hired and at least you can cover the fucking City Hall. It’s exciting. It’s a guaranteed chance to write. It’s a natural place to take refuge in if you’re not selling novels. Writing novels is a lot lonelier work.
“William Wei,” by Amie Barrodale
Issue no. 197 (Summer 2011)
I once brought a girl home because I liked her shoes. That was the only thing I noticed about her.
“Emerging,” by Pablo Neruda
Issue no. 57 (Spring 1974)
A man says yes without knowing
how to decide even what the question is …
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