{"id":100698,"date":"2016-07-22T14:02:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T18:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=100698"},"modified":"2016-07-25T13:25:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T17:25:57","slug":"staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"lead_960\"<\/a>

Detail from the cover of Jesse Ball\u2019s How to Set a Fire and Why<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Carole Firstman\u2019s ambitiously titled debut, Origins of the Universe and What It All Means<\/a><\/i>, is an essayistic memoir about her relationship with her estranged, eccentric (read: undiagnosed Asperger\u2019s) scientist father, but it\u2019s really a thumbed nose at binary argument and an objective romp through subjectivity\u2019s headspace. Throughout the book, Firstman sets up oppositional arguments in order to force them apart and marinate in the liminal in-between. Is her chauvinistic, mostly absent father good or bad? Firstman thinks it\u2019s hard to say, but it doesn\u2019t stop her from examining the relationship through myriad philosophic and scientific lenses. (I doubt there has ever been a book about family in which one learns more about science and the history of thought.) Though the father does and says things that would make even the least feminist, or simply decent, among us cringe, Firstman\u2019s characterization of family dynamics is pitch-perfect: her own impatience and frustrations with her father balance his foibles and thoughtlessness\u2014and her humor softens the lot. This is a very endearing book, a summer read for the curious mind. \u2014Jeffery Gleaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Guggenheim\u2019s recent exhibition \u201cPhoto-Poetics: An Anthology<\/a>\u201d made a huge impression on me; the show featured works by ten photographers\u2014nine women, including Erica Baum\u2014who all work closely, sometimes exclusively, with the printed page. So I was delighted to discover Dog Ear<\/a><\/i>, a book of twenty-five exquisite photographs by Baum. For the series, she dog-eared pages in mass-market paperbacks, then photographed the intersection of words at each fold to create a text of her own. In each tiny piece, bits of sentences read horizontally (\u201cskirts, bee-stung lips,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a funny thing\u201d) and vertically (\u201cmade up her face,\u201d \u201citchiest dresses\u201d). Part photo, part poem, the results vary in tone, from longing to manic, minimal to marvelous. In \u201cBear,\u201d which feels like a Tomi Ungerer picture book, where animals scheme and smoke cigars, a polar bear is drunk on schnapps and \u201cpawing\u201d \u201cthe birds.\u201d A new, limited edition of Dog Ear<\/i> comes courtesy of Ugly Duckling Presse. Fittingly, the book jacket doubles as a poster.\u00a0\u2014Jessica Calderon<\/strong><\/p>\n

It may be based on a British procedural, but the new HBO series The Night Of <\/a><\/i>is unmistakably shot in New York and, just as unmistakably, written by Richard Price. The premise: a studious Pakistani American kid sneaks out of the house with the keys to his father\u2019s cab, then ill-advisedly picks up a passenger, a distraught beauty headed to the Upper West Side. It\u2019s classic noir, with John Turturro as the boy’s schlubby but dedicated defense attorney; and because it\u2019s a Richard Price script, even a desk sergeant (the excellent Ben Shenkman) can steal a scene. Two episodes in, it\u2019s the best TV I\u2019ve seen this summer. \u2014Lorin Stein\u00a0<\/i><\/strong> <\/p>\n

\"babitz.Slow_Days_hi-res_2048x2048\"<\/a>I\u2019ve regrettably never been to Los Angeles, but that hasn\u2019t stopped me from being swept up in Eve Babitz\u2019s Slow Days, Fast Company<\/i><\/a>, which NYRB will reissue next month; Babitz infuses the novel with light, exuberance, and \u201chot dry winds,\u201d the so-called spirit of Southern California. In a new introduction, Matthew Specktor claims that \u201cBabitz\u2019s Los Angeles is as idiosyncratically true as William Faulkner\u2019s Mississippi<\/em>.\u201d Slow Days<\/em> is a love story, addressed to an unnamed male companion. The narrator outlines her intentions from the start: a man is evading her advances and the only way to catch him is to write this book and get him to read it. \u201cThe seduction of a non-reader is how I plan to tie up L.A.,\u201d she says. Arranged geographically as Babitz skirts from \u201cone ambivalent attachment to the next,\u201d Slow Days<\/i> has stop offs in Bakersfield, Dodgers Stadium, Palm Springs, Emerald Bay. A native Southerner, I know well the feeling of being achingly attached to a region, and there is a similar regional magic at work in Babitz\u2019s language. I\u2019m going to have to trust Specktor\u2019s original assertion, though. As John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote in this magazine, there is \u201ca tragic spell of the South, which you\u2019ve either felt or haven\u2019t.\u201d The same thing may be true for\u00a0Southern California, and I\u2019ll have to read on to uncover it. \u2014Caitlin Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesse Ball\u2019s new novel, How to Set a Fire and Why<\/a><\/i>, seems a departure from a lot of his work: it\u2019s totally without both the fever-dream experimentalism associated with his stories and\u00a0the subtle, anachronistic, Wild West undertones that lend stories like \u201cThe Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp, and Carr\u201d (which was first published in the Review<\/i> and won our\u00a02008 Plimpton Prize) a certain Americana timelessness. How to Set a Fire<\/em> is narrated by Lucia Stanton, a sixteen-year-old outsider whose only prized possession is her deceased father\u2019s Zippo, whose favorite movie is My Dinner with Andre<\/i>, and whose\u00a0hilarious, razor-sharp, no-bullshit voice is precisely what makes this book such an outstanding, throwback-classical work. I found it\u00a0impossible not to reminisce of Holden Caulfield when Lucia reappropriates out-of-time colloquialisms to rail on the affectations of her classmates (\u201c \u2018All the time,\u2019 she says, \u2018all the time, people basically beg me to freak out on them, and mostly I keep my cool.\u2019 \u201d), or when she seeks companionship in all the wrong places, such as with the band of pyromaniacs in her high school\u2019s secret Arson Club. It felt cathartic to read this book in our current\u00a0American moment: a passionate teenage girl, so overwhelmed with losses both personal and philosophical, who\u2019s so utterly confused and disgusted by American structuralist systems and the hypocrisies therein\u2014a freethinking citizen who\u2019s had enough of the circus, and wants to burn it all down.\u00a0\u2014Daniel Johnson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wriggle<\/a><\/i>, the new LP from clipping<\/a>, ex-Hamilton<\/i> cast member Daveed Diggs\u2019s experimental rap group, has been on my playlist this past month. Wriggle<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0best offerings are its weirdest. \u201cShooter,\u201d for instance, takes its HBK-inspired drumbeat entirely from field recordings of Diggs and bandmates Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson shooting fifteen different guns owned by a friend\u2019s father. Here, Diggs departs from his typical rapid-fire lyrical style in favor of a technique known as hashtag rap, in which a metaphorical statement is followed by a brief pause, which acts like it would in a simile, and punctuated\u00a0with a single-word punch line: \u201cClerk\u2019s shittin\u2019 in his drawers, skid row \/ Thought shit was just a hood game, skip rope \/ Shooter read the face real quick, Cliffsnotes \/ Kissed the shoe with the .45, mistletoe.\u201d While rappers like Cam\u2019ron and MF DOOM, and more recently Big Sean and Drake, have used the technique sparingly, Diggs dedicates nearly every line in the song to it. \u201cA part of what we do,\u201d Diggs says, \u201cis push an idea all the way to its limits, to what we see as its outer limits.\u201d \u2014Andrew Jimenez<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>

From Erica Baum\u2019s Dog Ear.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though I first read Rachel Cusk\u2019s Outline<\/a><\/i> serialized in The Paris Review<\/i>, I recently revisited it in novel form. I was most struck this time by its ethics. I tend to crave a narrative voice that is warped; I love inhabiting a character\u2019s delusion, desire, manipulation, and insight\u2014the more particular and peculiar the better. Outline<\/i>, though, is composed in large part of stories\u00a0told to the narrator by other characters, with the narrator\u2019s own voice receding almost entirely. Her curiosity makes space for characters to relay intimate, impossibly articulate tales of their marriages, childhoods, dreams, and failures that have a parable-like ring, as though we are eavesdropping on a more confessional version of Plato\u2019s dialogues. I think a reason I gravitate toward flawed and unlikeable narrators is that I hate being served dogma or ideology with my literature, but Cusk manages to give us a narrator I want to emulate\u2014one who listens carefully and empathetically to others and whose speech is measured, honest, and spare\u2014without the writing seeming heavy-handed or false. It\u2019s difficult to write a deeply-flawed character without judgment, but Outline<\/i>, similar to Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Gilead<\/a><\/i>, made me wonder if it is not even more difficult and courageous to write a narrator who seems truly decent without tipping into fantasy or sanctimony. I\u2019m not suggesting all books should be like this\u2014I think most would probably be dreadful. But Cusk brings a devastating combination of elegant style, intricate observation, and relentless empathy that makes it work.\u00a0\u2014Sylvie McNamara<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carole Firstman\u2019s ambitiously titled debut, Origins of the Universe and What It All Means, is an essayistic memoir about her relationship with her estranged, eccentric (read: undiagnosed Asperger\u2019s) scientist father, but it\u2019s really a thumbed nose at binary argument and an objective romp through subjectivity\u2019s headspace. Throughout the book, Firstman sets up oppositional arguments in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[23466,23468,23460,23473,23462,23464,19774,14918,9046,7384,23472,5142,23469,13036,23463,217,8622,2361,23470,23467,23461,16584,100,12043,7355,883,23465,3581,23471],"class_list":["post-100698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-animals-smoking-cigars","tag-bakersfield","tag-carole-firstman","tag-daveed-diggs","tag-dog-ear","tag-erica-baum","tag-eve-babitz","tag-family-life","tag-fast-company","tag-gilead","tag-hamilton","tag-holden-caulfield","tag-how-to-set-a-fire-and-why","tag-jesse-ball","tag-liminal-space","tag-los-angeles","tag-marilynne-robinson","tag-matthew-specktor","tag-my-dinner-with-andre","tag-nyrb-classics","tag-origins-of-the-universe-and-what-it-all-means","tag-outline","tag-photography","tag-rachel-cusk","tag-science","tag-staff-picks","tag-ugly-duckling-press","tag-william-faulkner","tag-wriggle"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaff Picks: Eve Babitz, Jesse Ball, Erica Baum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What the staff of The Paris Review is reading this week.\" \/>\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\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 22, 2016 \u2013 Carole Firstman\u2019s ambitiously titled debut, Origins of the Universe and What It All Means, is an essayistic memoir about her relationship with her\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\" \/>\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=\"2016-07-22T18:02:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-07-25T17:25:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\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=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 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\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-22T18:02:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-07-25T17:25:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\"},\"wordCount\":1449,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"animals smoking cigars\",\"Bakersfield\",\"Carole Firstman\",\"Daveed Diggs\",\"Dog Ear\",\"Erica Baum\",\"Eve Babitz\",\"family life\",\"Fast Company\",\"Gilead\",\"Hamilton\",\"Holden Caulfield\",\"How to Set a Fire and Why\",\"Jesse Ball\",\"liminal space\",\"Los Angeles\",\"Marilynne Robinson\",\"Matthew Specktor\",\"My Dinner with Andre\",\"NYRB classics\",\"Origins of the Universe and What It All Means\",\"Outline\",\"photography\",\"Rachel Cusk\",\"science\",\"staff picks\",\"Ugly Duckling Press\",\"William Faulkner\",\"Wriggle\"],\"articleSection\":[\"This Week\u2019s Reading\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\",\"name\":\"Staff Picks: Eve Babitz, Jesse Ball, Erica Baum\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-22T18:02:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-07-25T17:25:57+00:00\",\"description\":\"What the staff of The Paris Review is reading this week.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens\"}]},{\"@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\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/parisreview\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Staff Picks: Eve Babitz, Jesse Ball, Erica Baum","description":"What the staff of The Paris Review is reading this week.","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\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens by The Paris Review","og_description":"July 22, 2016 \u2013 Carole Firstman\u2019s ambitiously titled debut, Origins of the Universe and What It All Means, is an essayistic memoir about her relationship with her","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2016-07-22T18:02:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-07-25T17:25:57+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":640,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"The Paris Review","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"The Paris Review","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/"},"author":{"name":"The Paris Review","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e"},"headline":"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens","datePublished":"2016-07-22T18:02:01+00:00","dateModified":"2016-07-25T17:25:57+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/"},"wordCount":1449,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg","keywords":["animals smoking cigars","Bakersfield","Carole Firstman","Daveed Diggs","Dog Ear","Erica Baum","Eve Babitz","family life","Fast Company","Gilead","Hamilton","Holden Caulfield","How to Set a Fire and Why","Jesse Ball","liminal space","Los Angeles","Marilynne Robinson","Matthew Specktor","My Dinner with Andre","NYRB classics","Origins of the Universe and What It All Means","Outline","photography","Rachel Cusk","science","staff picks","Ugly Duckling Press","William Faulkner","Wriggle"],"articleSection":["This Week\u2019s Reading"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/","name":"Staff Picks: Eve Babitz, Jesse Ball, Erica Baum","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg","datePublished":"2016-07-22T18:02:01+00:00","dateModified":"2016-07-25T17:25:57+00:00","description":"What the staff of The Paris Review is reading this week.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/lead_960.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/staff-picks-fever-dreams-tragic-spells-and-in-betweens\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Staff Picks: Fever Dreams, Tragic Spells, and In-betweens"}]},{"@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\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e","name":"The Paris Review","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"The Paris Review"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/parisreview\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100698","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100698"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100808,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100698\/revisions\/100808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}