{"id":100541,"date":"2016-07-19T12:45:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T16:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=100541"},"modified":"2016-07-19T14:43:36","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T18:43:36","slug":"beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/","title":{"rendered":"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls<\/em>: An Interview with Emma Cline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Emma<\/a><\/p>\n

Emma Cline\u2019s debut novel, <\/em>The Girls<\/a>, may be loosely based on the Manson murders, but it isn\u2019t really about Manson at all\u2014it\u2019s about the women around him, those attracted to life at the edge of the world. Though the book circles around the blunt facts of Manson\u2019s crimes, it sidesteps the particulars, reducing him to a pitiful, failed musician named Russell whose only talent is tending to his wilting garden of devotees. Instead of dwelling on him, the novel follows fourteen-year-old Evie Boyd, who\u2019s increasingly enthralled by one of the older girls in Russell\u2019s circle.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cline, a winner of<\/em>\u00a0The Paris Review\u2019s Plimpton Prize<\/a>, <\/em>writes with the kind of beauty the painter Agnes Martin once described as \u201can awareness in the mind.\u201d \u201c<\/em>Marion<\/em><\/a>,\u201d Cline\u2019s\u00a0story in the <\/em>Review\u2019s <\/em>Summer 2013 issue<\/em><\/a>, opens with the line, \u201cCars the color of melons and tangerines sizzled in cul-de-sac driveways.\u201d <\/em>The Girls is set against a dreamy, at times abstracted, California landscape. Her descriptions shimmer on the page: trying to mimic a girl she admires, Evie stands straighter, \u201cholding my head like an egg in a cup\u201d; a teenage boy\u2019s room reeks of masturbation, \u201ca damp rupture in the air\u201d; girls are \u201cswampy with nostalgia.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Though she\u2019s encouraged by the warm response <\/em>The Girls has received, Cline eschews the public eye. \u201cI\u2019m used to the isolated part of writing, the part where you\u2019re doing a lot of work alone, in solitude,\u201d she told me. When we spoke on the phone last month, she\u2019d just landed in LA for a reading. I asked her how long she\u2019d be out West. \u201cJust another week or so,\u201d she said, \u201cand then I\u2019m at large.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard you say that you read extensively about the Manson Family long before you started writing The Girls<\/em>. What other research did you have to do?<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

There are so many cult and commune memoirs, and I read a lot of those to get the specifics of daily life, to get an idea of what time might feel like, how a day might track. The Girls <\/em>is a historical novel in that it\u2019s set in the past, but I don\u2019t think of it as a historical novel. I really wasn\u2019t after an assailable historical truth. It was a lot more about trying to achieve a certain mood or tone\u2014which was menace adjacent to California sunshine\u2014than focusing more directly on the group.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

When did you actually start to write what would become The Girls<\/em>?<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been working on a novel set in an Oakland commune in California\u2014the same area where this book is set\u2014for a few years, and then I sort of switched gears with it. I\u00a0started working on this version about two years ago. I was of course aware of the murders when I was working on the commune novel. The events were the mythology I was circling around, but I didn\u2019t explicitly talk about a similar cult.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Both \u201cMarion\u201d and The Girls<\/em> feature young female protagonists, though I believe the girl in \u201cMarion\u201d is even a little younger than Evie Boyd\u2014eleven years old.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

I\u2019m interested in this moment on the cusp of adulthood\u2014when we encounter how the world treats women and girls\u2014and what it means to be a girl in the world. That age somehow has both a kind of innocence and a burgeoning awareness.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

You start to notice real darkness at that age that you didn\u2019t really see before.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

Yeah, you start to reckon with the world around you, beyond the confines of your family, for the first time. I think it\u2019s a time when people look around to see what other models there are for living. You\u2019re susceptible to whoever presents the most charming model of living or lifestyle. I was also thinking a lot about the male gaze. And then I thought about what the female gaze might look like, what kind of objectification and self-objectification happens at that age\u2014especially with this hyperawareness of other people\u2019s appearances\u2014when everything feels right on the surface.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Other readers have noticed that, even though the book is saturated in the sixties, The Girls<\/em> doesn\u2019t have any of the pop-culture marks of that era\u2014obligatory references to the news, movies, TV.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

Those books or movies where you tick off every major cultural event\u2014like Forrest Gump<\/em>\u2014they just have to interject every famous thing that ever happened. But it was important to me that The Girls<\/em> feel in some way like a timeless story, or like you could access the truth that was at the core of it without getting too pinned down to the sixties. It\u2019s a matter of choosing details that aren\u2019t overly familiar, I think. Details that are slightly adjacent to what\u2019s expected, and then just keeping in mind and foregrounding emotion. I think that\u2019s how things feel real, if you actually write about what would be in the consciousness of a fourteen-year-old girl, which wouldn\u2019t be major cultural or political moments. It would be personal events.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

That makes me think of Evie\u2019s mom\u2014their relationship seems like it could only exist the way it does because of the era. Her mom, newly divorced, is trying to be liberated but is still choked in a moment that hasn\u2019t really freed her. At one point, Evie and her mother have an unbearably awkward dinner with one of her mother\u2019s boyfriends, and at some point her mom turns to her date to have him feed her \u201clike a bird.\u201d That\u2019s a very submissive gesture. It\u2019s like feminism hasn\u2019t truly touched her yet.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

That\u2019s so funny. Somebody asked me before if I had read a lot about the feminist movement during that time, and what that moment meant in feminist history. To me, the mother character feels familiar\u2014not like my own mother, but familiar. I feel like I encounter that personality a lot even in our moment. It\u2019s interesting that her character may be dovetailed with a pre-feminist moment.<\/p>\n

\"26893819\"<\/a><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

After a short prelude, the book begins by presenting Evie as an adult, staying at a friend\u2019s beach house, and her memories of 1969 only start to flood in when someone\u2014who turns out to be the son of her friend\u2014comes in unexpectedly. Why did you launch the book that way?<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

I guess every book starts with a triggering moment, right? No? There has to be some incident, I think. I also liked the idea of the book opening with this perceived violence, which turns out to be benign. At least, it\u2019s not an immediate danger. But it is this evil presence in this other way that\u2019s breached the house. I also like bookending the story with another encounter with a stranger, where there\u2019s this moment of fear that is also then deflated in a weird way.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Did the book always have a frame narrative?<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

It did. The only way I could project ahead into the whole project was from this starting point of having an older narrator. It\u2019s funny, because I think people respond most to the 1960s section, since it\u2019s the bulk of the book and it\u2019s the most immediate, but for me the older character is more interesting. I think about her growing up in Northern California, where there was this flush of idealism in the sixties, and then in the intervening decades people have had to bear out that idealism to whatever ends. I\u2019m interested in the way people navigate the space between that idealism and where you end up.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Young Evie, since she\u2019s fourteen, can\u2019t possibly be reflective or brilliant. But the older Evie imbues the fourteen-year-old with depth as a person.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

Yeah, fourteen-year-olds can\u2019t see around their emotions in any helpful way. They\u2019re so monstrously claustrophobic, which I remember about being a teenager. They have no ability to gauge the difference between something minor and something actually larger that\u2019s happened to some more consequential result. It\u2019s emotionally tiring to have these high-pitched feelings at every moment. The older narrator gets to contextualize and comment on what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

The great central theme of the book is female friendship\u2014how we develop those relationships and what they mean to young women. Evie says at one point, \u201cAt that age I looked at women with brutal and emotionless judgment. Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention \u2026 I took Tamar\u2019s beauty personally.\u201d Why do you think women evaluate each other like this? To me, it\u2019s not just linked to competition but might also be tied to power and love.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a good, simple answer. I think I was interested in the changeability of female desire. How many different forms it takes, especially when it locates itself in other girls. It does seem sort of like a proto-romance sometimes. Boys almost act as this triangulation, where everyone\u2019s acting like it\u2019s all about them. But boys are bit players in so many ways, and we have all this emotion that ends up directed at other girls. I feel like girls are so fooled in this mythmaking ability, in seeing the world as filled with these symbols and markers of love and meaning. I don\u2019t feel that boys are indoctrinated into that vocabulary in the same way. It\u2019s almost like the girls are the only ones speaking this language, so of course, when you\u2019re dealing with other girls, you\u2019re talking to people who can understand you.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

I was talking with my boyfriend the other day about princess movies and wondering, How do you boys watch princess movies? Why do they even watch them? What do they see in them? Because he watched Aladdin <\/em>and The Little Mermaid <\/em>and Sleeping Beauty <\/em>and all of them just like I did.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

Those movies are ostensibly love stories, but as a child you\u2019re focused on these beautiful princesses at the center. I would sleep on these Little Mermaid <\/em>sheets, and the pillowcase had a picture of Ariel, and I would sleep every night on her shell-covered breast, you know? This lurid, cartoonish breast. It\u2019s so funny to me\u2014of course, as a girl, anyway, I felt indoctrinated into this male gaze. You absorb it in this almost thoughtless way.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

I think of Elena Ferrante\u2019s books\u2014they\u2019ve been written about so much, but I feel like they definitely changed the way I see the world, my relationships especially.<\/p>\n

CLINE<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an interesting female friendship. Ferrante writes so well about how murky it is. About how much those relationships are wrapped up in\u2014there can be all these dark feelings in friendship, too, I think. That\u2019s what draws me to friendship as a topic. I just think it\u2019s so much more malleable and it can accommodate so many more shades of gray than other relationships can, because people don\u2019t have the cultural language and codes around friendship that we do around other traditionally sanctioned relationships. So I love that Lila and Elena\u2019s\u00a0friendship resists some easy narrative. That feels most true to me.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Love is an associate editor of <\/em>The Paris Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emma Cline\u2019s debut novel, The Girls, may be loosely based on the Manson murders, but it isn\u2019t really about Manson at all\u2014it\u2019s about the women around him, those attracted to life at the edge of the world. Though the book circles around the blunt facts of Manson\u2019s crimes, it sidesteps the particulars, reducing him to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":973,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[276,23323,6915,20541,5820,23320,23322,17,958,775,23312,13103,23310,10964,23311,23309,1102,6677,241,23313,23315,23316,124,747,23321,1339,14136,1527,23318,23324,23308,23319,23314,8247,36,75],"class_list":["post-100541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-1960s","tag-advance","tag-agnes-martin","tag-at-work","tag-beauty","tag-best","tag-book-review","tag-books","tag-brooklyn","tag-california","tag-california-sunshine","tag-charles-manson","tag-cult-memoirs","tag-emma-cline","tag-evie-boyd","tag-female-gaze","tag-feminism","tag-girls","tag-interview","tag-life-in-california","tag-manson-murders","tag-marion","tag-new-york","tag-novels","tag-objectification","tag-paris-review","tag-penguin-random-house","tag-plimpton-prize","tag-princess-movies","tag-sensational","tag-the-girls","tag-the-girls-book","tag-the-manson-family","tag-truth","tag-women","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn Interview with \u2018The Girls\u2019 Author Emma Cline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An interview with Emma Cline, author of the sensational debut The Girls.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls: An Interview with Emma Cline by Caitlin Love\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 19, 2016 \u2013 Emma Cline\u2019s debut novel, The Girls, may be loosely based on the Manson murders, but it isn\u2019t really about Manson at all\u2014it\u2019s about the women around him,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-19T16:45:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-07-19T18:43:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline-1024x816.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"816\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Caitlin Love\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Caitlin Love\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Caitlin Love\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/32438e2c4d8c860a60ecaa8ef15e6d43\"},\"headline\":\"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls: An Interview with Emma Cline\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-19T16:45:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-07-19T18:43:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\"},\"wordCount\":1947,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"1960s\",\"advance\",\"Agnes Martin\",\"At Work\",\"beauty\",\"best\",\"book review\",\"books\",\"Brooklyn\",\"California\",\"California sunshine\",\"Charles Manson\",\"cult memoirs\",\"Emma Cline\",\"Evie Boyd\",\"female gaze\",\"feminism\",\"Girls\",\"interview\",\"life in California\",\"Manson Murders\",\"Marion\",\"New York\",\"novels\",\"objectification\",\"Paris Review\",\"Penguin Random House\",\"Plimpton Prize\",\"princess movies\",\"sensational\",\"The Girls\",\"The Girls book\",\"the Manson Family\",\"truth\",\"women\",\"writing\"],\"articleSection\":[\"At Work\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\",\"name\":\"An Interview with \u2018The Girls\u2019 Author Emma Cline\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-19T16:45:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-07-19T18:43:36+00:00\",\"description\":\"An interview with Emma Cline, author of the sensational debut The Girls.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls: An Interview with Emma Cline\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/32438e2c4d8c860a60ecaa8ef15e6d43\",\"name\":\"Caitlin Love\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98813f908f5f7fb6af610e638e7563fd9818bbb7d619b1269c61999fdb34070b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98813f908f5f7fb6af610e638e7563fd9818bbb7d619b1269c61999fdb34070b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Caitlin Love\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/clove\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An Interview with \u2018The Girls\u2019 Author Emma Cline","description":"An interview with Emma Cline, author of the sensational debut The Girls.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls: An Interview with Emma Cline by Caitlin Love","og_description":"July 19, 2016 \u2013 Emma Cline\u2019s debut novel, The Girls, may be loosely based on the Manson murders, but it isn\u2019t really about Manson at all\u2014it\u2019s about the women around him,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2016-07-19T16:45:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-07-19T18:43:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":816,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline-1024x816.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Caitlin Love","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Caitlin Love","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/"},"author":{"name":"Caitlin Love","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/32438e2c4d8c860a60ecaa8ef15e6d43"},"headline":"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls: An Interview with Emma Cline","datePublished":"2016-07-19T16:45:09+00:00","dateModified":"2016-07-19T18:43:36+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/"},"wordCount":1947,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg","keywords":["1960s","advance","Agnes Martin","At Work","beauty","best","book review","books","Brooklyn","California","California sunshine","Charles Manson","cult memoirs","Emma Cline","Evie Boyd","female gaze","feminism","Girls","interview","life in California","Manson Murders","Marion","New York","novels","objectification","Paris Review","Penguin Random House","Plimpton Prize","princess movies","sensational","The Girls","The Girls book","the Manson Family","truth","women","writing"],"articleSection":["At Work"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/","name":"An Interview with \u2018The Girls\u2019 Author Emma Cline","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg","datePublished":"2016-07-19T16:45:09+00:00","dateModified":"2016-07-19T18:43:36+00:00","description":"An interview with Emma Cline, author of the sensational debut The Girls.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/emmacline.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/19\/beauty-truth-and-the-girls-an-interview-with-emma-cline\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Beauty, Truth, and The Girls: An Interview with Emma Cline"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/32438e2c4d8c860a60ecaa8ef15e6d43","name":"Caitlin Love","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98813f908f5f7fb6af610e638e7563fd9818bbb7d619b1269c61999fdb34070b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98813f908f5f7fb6af610e638e7563fd9818bbb7d619b1269c61999fdb34070b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Caitlin Love"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/clove\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/973"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100541"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100560,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100541\/revisions\/100560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}