{"id":113030,"date":"2017-07-26T11:48:52","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T15:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=113030"},"modified":"2017-07-27T10:08:42","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T14:08:42","slug":"i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Raised by Wolves.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Jim Goldberg, Megan<\/em>, Sherman Oaks, 1991. \u00a9 Jim Goldberg. All images courtesy of the artist, Pace\/MacGill Gallery (NY), and Casemore Kirkeby (SF).<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Friday?
\nDad,
\nI\u2019m really sorry about
\nlosing control of myself
\n+ hurting you (+ the, \u201cahem\u201d,
\nbathroom mirror).
\nI know + understand
\nthat talk doesn\u2019t mean a
\ndamn thing to you by
\nnow. (Especially from my mouth.) …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some facts before things get messy. This unattributed note\u2014handwritten as neatly as one\u2019s science homework, its margin decorated with a ghostly heart\u2014appears in Jim Goldberg\u2019s mammoth book of photographs Raised by Wolves<\/em> (1995), juxtaposed with a fuzzy snap of a scarecrow-like boy tilting forward as if hit by a windstorm. I think that boy is Tweeky Dave, a cadaverous teenage drug addict who died from liver disease circa 1993; he was, for a few years before his death, something of a celebrity urchin on the Los Angeles streets he used to haunt in search of opiates. He\u2019s also the hero of Goldberg\u2019s epic book, which chronicles the lives of various homeless kids in LA and its environs (shout-out to Echo, Marcos with the wonky eye, Wolfette, Vampchild\u2014\u201cthis cute boy who says he\u2019s a real vampire\u201d\u2014and Blade) and comes stuffed with transcripts of their conversations, faxes from Social Services, Polaroids, and other grungy ephemera testifying to the decade Goldberg spent shadowing his subjects. Tracking them through the book\u2014on drugs, out of school, and running away from ogreish parents\u2014also means confronting some of the gnarliest fallout from the Reagan-Bush years: the rapacious mutilation of education programs and social services, not to mention the, ahem, decline of the \u201cfamily values\u201d they claimed to protect. Tweeky Dave is just the most wretched embodiment of the trouble all those acts can cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really sorry about losing control of myself \u2026 \u201d Raised by Wolves<\/em> is about what happens when the self gets lost amid all the drugs and dereliction as economics turn savage and parents disappear. Meanwhile, the kids are too spaced out to know what day it is.<\/p>\n

Before Dave died, he liked to call Jim Goldberg \u201cDad,\u201d too. Check that picture of a scar snaking up Dave\u2019s stomach and it\u2019s obvious that his real father, \u201ca biker from hell,\u201d shot him \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Dave,<\/em>\u00a0San Francisco. 1989.<\/p><\/div>\n

Or maybe he stabbed him?<\/p>\n

Maybe he did neither: it depends how much you believe the stories coming from that junkie mouth, which, as Dave acknowledges, is famous for telling tall tales. Three hundred pages later, he\u2019s on his deathbed playfully telling \u201cDad\u201d to invite James Brown, \u201cTrent from Nine Inch Nails,\u201d Stephen King, and \u201cCher (what the fuck)\u201d to his funeral. This sad event happens on a sunny day outside a Salvation Army Youth Center. Cher doesn\u2019t make it. At its conclusion, the kids release balloons into the sky.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The, uh, \u201cestablishing shot\u201d that opens the book shows a handsome pinewood house, hazy, shrouded by flowers, sleepy trees, and seen through some creep\u2019s binoculars. When we talk on the phone, Goldberg tells me he was thinking about Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme\u2019s The Silence of the Lambs<\/em> (1991), the toad-voiced sociopath who abducts and kills innocent women after tracking their movements through his night-vision goggles. Lycanthropic vibes: we could be experiencing the perspective of the Big Bad Wolf lurking outside the house of a succulent little pig. There\u2019s something storybook-like, upstate idyllic, about the picture, too, which may not actually show Echo\u2019s mother\u2019s real house at all but a weirdly familiar dream home liberated from elsewhere, giving extra resonance to her claim that what\u2019s happened to her family could strike \u201cany home in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Untitled (House Through Binoculars),\u00a0<\/em>New York. 1992.<\/p><\/div>\n

What Goldberg assembled in Raised by Wolves <\/em>isn\u2019t a real history, which wouldn\u2019t be a fitting tribute to the kids since they never told the whole truth anyway, but something lyrical and a little feverish. Facts get high or vanish on their way through the night. \u201cSome of the names,\u201d Goldberg tells me, \u201chave been changed to protect the innocent.\u201d Verification is difficult when it\u2019s tested against the kids\u2019 habits of compulsive mythmaking, which is also a strategy for survival: I can\u2019t be hurt if I\u2019m not the real me.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Detritus scattered through the book (an unfinished list): a court report with FUCK U ASSHOLE<\/small>\u00a0scrawled on it in felt tip; an ad for onion rings repurposed as the space for a story about scoring heroin after dark; a xeroxed Rorschach blot, commonly referred to as \u201cCard IV\u201d in clinical situations and also known as \u201cthe Father Card,\u201d that funky monster towering over you, legs astride your soon-to-be corpse; Echo\u2019s old Cheap Trick T-shirt; various desolate meditations on existence, such as \u201cmy mom and dad reeject [sic] me [\u2026] things are all wrong,\u201d written by teenagers in grade-school hands.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Dave\u2019s Country Western Song,<\/em>\u00a01991.<\/p><\/div>\n

*<\/p>\n

To say Raised by Wolves<\/em> remains darkly relevant today is an understatement. You don\u2019t need Danny Brown going nuts, rapping on Atrocity Exhibition<\/em> (2016) to figure it out\u2014 \u201cDon\u2019t have a soul \/ Myself I don\u2019t know no more!\u201d\u2014just revisit the moment where a cop barks at an unnamed and unarmed kid, \u201cDon\u2019t move or I\u2019ll blow your fuckin\u2019 head off!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave later disses the cops as \u201crednecks with hard-ons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave\u2019s in love with Echo, but she doesn\u2019t love him back. Familiar teenage trouble except the average smitten kid doesn\u2019t say, \u201cBaby, I love you so much, I\u2019d drink your blood,\u201d while frying on five hits of LSD and craving heroin. Drinking blood is also on the minds of the punk fox Blade and her BF, Tank, who cruise down to the Hollywood Boulevard (\u201cthe Boulie,\u201d in Wolf slang) with Goldberg in tow and \u201cstop (always) at Bela Lugosi\u2019s star\u201d on the Walk of Fame \u201cand suck each other\u2019s neck.\u201d Poor Bela was a junkie, too, shooting Demerol for two decades until the schlock film director Ed Wood checked him into rehab. Addiction is a little vampiric kiss, the parasitic romance that slowly eats you up. Maybe, if it feels like they\u2019re the only things keeping you alive, it\u2019s natural to speedball the two kinds of love into one toxic mixture.<\/p>\n

In the suburbs of New York at Xmas, Echo\u2019s mother (referred to as R. Sylvia) explains what happened to her little girl. She started running away when she was thirteen\u2014\u201cone night she slept in a Goodwill dumpster\u201d\u2014 because she was being routinely molested by her ex-cop stepfather. Once the abuse was common knowledge, \u201cshe stopped going to school and she refused to see a psychologist.\u201d She hitchhiked to Kansas City, got dragged to a group home, and crashed back at her mother\u2019s house but scrammed after a little while and somehow made it to Hollywood.<\/p>\n

R. Sylvia: One night she called me in to watch a TV talk show. It was that guy with the big mouth. She said she hated him. Got up the next morning and she was gone. Just like that. To California.<\/p>\n

Jim: What was the show about?<\/p>\n

R. Sylvia: I don\u2019t know. Rock stars, I guess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was that phase in the nineties when talk shows acted as a hotline to the darkest regions of the national psyche and simultaneously served as an accidental, shock-faced introduction to the variegated freakiness of underground culture for kids in suburbia. GWAR flew from their home planet onto Joan Rivers<\/em><\/a>. G. G. Allin snarled through his appearances on Geraldo<\/em>. Marilyn Manson looked like some creature from the moon on Donahue<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Echo and Dave at My House,<\/em>\u00a0San Francisco. 1989.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

A loquacious wraith in a poison-green sweatshirt and a baseball cap, Dave starred in a few episodes of The Jerry Springer Show<\/em> between 1991 and 1992, eager to be ogled by its audience as an authentic example of what somebody elsewhere in the book identifies as \u201cAmerica\u2019s deterioration.\u201d VHS rips of his appearances still circulate on YouTube<\/a>. Dave is painful to watch, his body skeletal, his eyes bug-like, his teeth piratical, mouthing off about his real dad: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was the Vietnam War or he was just crazy.\u201d Somebody commented on the video of his second appearance, \u201cWOW \/ this is as REAL AS it GETS \/ n to think things r only getting worst [sic].\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Family drama: quizzed by David Brinkley for ABC News on December 22, 1989, about the escalating problem with homelessness in America\u2019s cities, Ronald Reagan stated, \u201cThey make it their own choice for staying out there. There are shelters in virtually every city \u2026 and those people still prefer out on those grates and lawns to going into one of those shelters.\u201d Remember that one of Reagan\u2019s ultra-creepy nicknames for Nancy, the first lady, was \u201cMommy.\u201d If Pop didn\u2019t even have a prescription for the dispossessed beyond bafflement and contempt, Mommy\u2019s was no better. \u201cJust Say No\u201d was her advice\u2014not exactly reasonable when, like Echo, your memory\u2019s a landfill of trauma: incest, lost horses, the routine degradations of turning tricks. The fantastic white powder laid out in some cute boy\u2019s hand will take all the trouble away. Who could say no to a thing like that? C\u2019mon, honey, this right here\u2019s how fairy tales begin.<\/p>\n

Dave high-fives sunlight as he lies on the Walk of Fame, a skeleton catching a few rays, as the regular folk walk past.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Slayer, Errol Flynn Squat, Hollywood<\/em>. 1988.<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s the psychogeographical heaviness of LA to consider, too. Much of the action in Raised by Wolves<\/em> happens in the shadows of Hollywood\u2019s industrial-entertainment complex. The kids stalk through Tinseltown\u2019s sprawl like hungry ghosts. On that dismal margin of Highway 101 under the Hollywood Freeway, a slick bro in a convertible pulls up. Poor Marcos (\u201che calls himself the Ugly Duckling\u201d) fails to seduce him into a date. There\u2019s the Troll squat, and \u201cthe old Errol Flynn estate turned squat up on the hill.\u201d Sometimes the kids go to rathole motels at night to get high, nod out, or gawp at whatever\u2019s flickering on the TV, including, as Goldberg notes, a schmaltz-fest about a girl orphan saved from the horrors of street life by some Daddy Warbucks\u2013esque benefactor. Skid Row awaits. And twenty-seven miles from the Boulie is Manhattan Beach, home of McMartin Preschool, whose staff were notoriously subject to a trial from 1987 to 1990. Children scarcely old enough to spell their own names alleged that their teachers arranged hot-air balloon trips to the graveyard for festive bursts of animal sacrifice and molestation. That was the era when wicked children were supposedly in league with Satan.<\/p>\n

Annie, Dorothy, the Artful Dodger, even dopey Ryan Atwood from The O.C<\/em>. all embody the orphan as a supernatural combination of cherub, rascal, and hunk deserving special reward for the traumas they have seen. Their real-life counterparts get treated like hot garbage. But maybe it\u2019s fun being a drug-crazed rapscallion haunting dank underpasses and parking lots, setting your brain alight with freaky chemicals, running from the cops like they\u2019re Captain Hook and you\u2019re Peter Pan \u2026 in the right spirit, the whole festering place could be Neverland. See the boy skating who looks like he\u2019s on fire or the Polaroids of the kids grinning. No grown-ups. There are reasons why they \u201cstay out there,\u201d Ronnie.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

San Remo Hotel,\u00a0<\/em>San Francisco. 1991.<\/p><\/div>\n

*<\/p>\n

A snapshot-style portrait from Goldberg\u2019s book Rich and Poor<\/em> (1985) provides another read on the fragile bond between parents and children that looms through Raised by Wolves<\/em>. It shows a protective ma and her skinny blond angel son, hands in his underwear, the two together in a desolate little room. \u201cMy mom looks pretty,\u201d the boy writes in wonky Crayola alphabet, \u201cI look scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldberg says one of the questions haunting Raised by Wolves<\/em> is, \u201cWho are the wolves now, the parents or the children?\u201d Old questions: Can you be born a wolf, or are you transformed into one by your environment, and can solace be found even in savage conditions, as in the tale of Romulus and Remus, famous orphan bros nourished by a mother wolf? Whatever else happens, a brutal juvenile-detention system assures a child\u2019s decline, turning him or her, as one counselor at San Francisco\u2019s Youth Guidance Center tells Goldberg, into \u201ccold-blooded killing animals that can\u2019t be helped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two shots from juvenile hall: an Xmas tree huddling in the corner like some wizened fungus and a picture of a bed that was presumably used in a turn-of-the-century madhouse, its frame bound with suffocating belts. Sweet dreams.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Baby Angel, Funland Squat,<\/em>\u00a0San Fernando Valley. 1988.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sound bites:<\/p>\n

\u201cSay, I hear they\u2019re giving job interviews for the carnival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday we were walkin\u2019 down the Boulevard and this giant lion walked up to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had me snortin\u2019 mousse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lonely. I\u2019m gonna get a puppy and name it Megadeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the kids shoved to the margins by familial contempt or indifference\u2014or their own private craving for a life that\u2019s a little more dangerous than your average Happy Days<\/em> rerun\u2014are drawn together into this motley congregation. There\u2019s punks, boys whose dads died in Vietnam, a hair-metal girl in a Rush shirt (the chorus to their misfit jam \u201cSubdivisions\u201d goes, \u201cConform or be cast out!<\/a>\u201d), LA goths, fabulous queer black boys acting out what wasn\u2019t even called \u201ctransitioning\u201d yet, obnoxious skaters, and miscellaneous drug-addled urchins. Itemizing the contents of his childhood before he hit the streets, Dave lists candy bars, heroin, TV, and stray dogs. \u201cThis was a weird family, dude,\u201d he says, \u201cthis was not The Brady Bunch<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The gay contingent is having untold fun. Meet Deion: \u201cI\u2019m so fine, Miss Thang, I made $250 for just sitting in a jacuzzi and jacking this daddy off [\u2026] Got fucked-up good and got free food. See, this guy, he cares about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deion is a homo-hoodlum with a penchant for getting ripped to the max on Hollywood\u2019s best speed and \u201chubba\u201d (crack). He could\u2019ve starred in a West Coast version of Paris Is Burning<\/em>. In mad pursuit of his beloved hubba one spring night, he steals a car with a bunch of wild-eyed pals and almost gets shot by the cops. He escapes the wrath of LA\u2019s finest (soon to be infamous everywhere for pummeling Rodney King) and burns rubber to another hotel room where he smokes rocks until his brain melts as the alarm in the ceiling keeps going off. It\u2019s no heart-stopping surprise when he goes AWOL<\/small> midway through the book. Goldberg learns that he\u2019s cooling out in \u201csome witness protection program whilst helping some former hotel hot shot who likes little boys and girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Echo Waiting<\/em> (Polk and Sutter),\u00a0<\/em>San Francisco. 1986.<\/p><\/div>\n

Another vanishing act.<\/p>\n

Three cops roll down the street, seen from a high window as if by some paranoid speed freak.<\/p>\n

Whatever the toxic nature of the relationships between teen hustlers and their johns (Goldberg says, \u201cthere were always adults preying on children\u201d), the kids devote major time to bragging about their sugar daddies and detailing their fantastic largesse. Cultivating the attentions of these shadowy gentlemen is an art. Some boys invent sugar daddies to make themselves seem in demand, adored, like little children dramatizing the exploits of their imaginary friends.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Calling Goldberg from the hospital, Dave sings the Scarecrow\u2019s ditty \u201cIf I Only Had a Brain\u201d but slyly turns (tweaks!) it into a junkie lament, \u201cIf I Only Had a Vein\u201d \u2026 then the line goes dead.<\/p>\n

When Dave dies, the hospital connects Goldberg with the boy\u2019s family in Texas, and he gets the true story. If it contradicts Dave\u2019s lurid tale, it\u2019s just as tragic. Dave was one of a pair of orphaned twins adopted by a sweet-tempered Christian couple\u2014his obsession with Echo suddenly looks like a doomed attempt to capture this missing double, his absent sister. As this unnamed sibling explains over the phone, Dave was born without stomach muscles and had to undergo experimental surgery in a bid to fix him. \u201cHe was a mess,\u201d his sister says, cold, \u201cand nobody expected him to live past eighteen.\u201d Asked why her brother would concoct such wild tales about his life, she states, \u201cMy guess is David could never distinguish between reality and his dreams. I think this was because of his psychological and physical problems. They got in the way of everything. He stuck out so much that he never grew up. He ended up being a very confused boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Goldberg, the family hands over the rights to Dave\u2019s remains like neighbors permitting the retrieval of a lost dog from their yard: \u201cYes, that would be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dave\u2019s Jacket,<\/em>\u00a0Hollywood. 1991.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI call them again,\u201d Goldberg writes, and \u201cleave a message about the date of the funeral. They never call back.\u201d Goldberg still has the box containing Dave\u2019s ashes.<\/p>\n

The balloons go up into the sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know this whole round world do not love me nohow,\u201d Washington Phillips sings on \u201cI Had a\u00a0Good Mother and Father,\u201d from 1929, \u201cand it is on account of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still hooking in her first trimester, Echo has a baby with a wastoid called Twack Jack, whom Goldberg calls \u201ca dog-faced surfer geek,\u201d and another with a second dude shortly afterward: two girls. The boys jet\u2014Twack Jack is popping wheelies in the hospital parking lot and hounding Goldberg for drug money when Echo\u2019s in labor\u2014but miraculously she cleans up. She watches TV; she changes her name back to Beth; she looks after the girls. She tells Goldberg, \u201cI like having a place to brush my teeth\u201d: a warm, disinfected idea of happiness.<\/p>\n

A home movie of Echo as a radiant ghost, slouched on the swings in the afternoon sun.<\/p>\n

An elementary-school portrait of Echo appears early in the book. She\u2019s a blonde little girl in a cotton-candy-pink dress with a cute gap-toothed grin. Next to the picture is a careful little note recalling a family trip as if it were\u00a0paradise, sweet and bright and gone forever.<\/p>\n

We saw anything and everything you could see
\nIt was the best time
\nWe stopped in the middle of
\nthis light green forest
\nI wandered off and climbed a tree
\nNothin\u2019 but bright green everywhere.
\nThat was the time
\nmy parents were happiest together
\nAnd I was happiest with them
\nThat was the only time I can
\nremember us being a real family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

A new \u2018bootleg\u2019 edition of <\/em>Raised by Wolves will appear in September via jimgoldberg.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

Special thanks to Lauren Panzo at Pace\/MacGill Gallery, in New York.\u00a0<\/em>Extra special thanks to Jim Goldberg.<\/em><\/p>\n

Charlie Fox is a writer who lives in London. His book of essays, <\/em>This Young Monster<\/a>, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, is out now.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s\u00a0Raised by Wolves.   Friday? Dad, I\u2019m really sorry about losing control of myself + hurting you (+ the, \u201cahem\u201d, bathroom mirror). I know + understand that talk doesn\u2019t mean a damn thing to you by now. (Especially from my mouth.) … Some facts before things get messy. This unattributed note\u2014handwritten as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[775,189,24994,8226,29736,6818,29734,995,29735,18805,29733,13001,29732,12902,217,13325,8432,29731,100,29730,6971,25312],"class_list":["post-113030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-california","tag-children","tag-eighties","tag-family","tag-family-trouble","tag-george-bush","tag-highway-101","tag-hollywood","tag-hollywood-freeway","tag-homeless","tag-homeless-children","tag-homeless-people","tag-jim-goldberg","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-nineties","tag-parents","tag-photobook","tag-photography","tag-raised-by-wolves","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-washington-phillips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nI Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s \u2018Raised by Wolves\u2019 (1995), a massive photobook that chronicles the lives of homeless kids in LA during the eighties and nineties.\" \/>\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\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood by Charlie Fox\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 26, 2017 \u2013 Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s\u00a0Raised by Wolves.   Friday? Dad, I\u2019m really sorry about losing control of myself + hurting you (+ the, \u201cahem\u201d, bathroom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\" \/>\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=\"2017-07-26T15:48:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-07-27T14:08:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1216\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Charlie Fox\" \/>\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=\"Charlie Fox\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"16 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Charlie Fox\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a2ddd3e6dca55d380deef8002693358f\"},\"headline\":\"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-07-26T15:48:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-07-27T14:08:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\"},\"wordCount\":3243,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001-1024x830.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"California\",\"children\",\"eighties\",\"family\",\"family trouble\",\"George Bush\",\"Highway 101\",\"Hollywood\",\"Hollywood Freeway\",\"homeless\",\"homeless children\",\"homeless people\",\"Jim Goldberg\",\"LA\",\"Los Angeles\",\"nineties\",\"parents\",\"photobook\",\"photography\",\"Raised by Wolves\",\"Ronald Reagan\",\"Washington Phillips\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\",\"name\":\"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001-1024x830.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-07-26T15:48:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-07-27T14:08:42+00:00\",\"description\":\"Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s \u2018Raised by Wolves\u2019 (1995), a massive photobook that chronicles the lives of homeless kids in LA during the eighties and nineties.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001.jpg\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":1216},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood\"}]},{\"@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\/a2ddd3e6dca55d380deef8002693358f\",\"name\":\"Charlie Fox\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99a37a62ead0147a95676c6048ed20741f2cacb3c963a6c74babe029b2a0ea89?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99a37a62ead0147a95676c6048ed20741f2cacb3c963a6c74babe029b2a0ea89?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Charlie Fox\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/cfox\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood","description":"Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s \u2018Raised by Wolves\u2019 (1995), a massive photobook that chronicles the lives of homeless kids in LA during the eighties and nineties.","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\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood by Charlie Fox","og_description":"July 26, 2017 \u2013 Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s\u00a0Raised by Wolves.   Friday? Dad, I\u2019m really sorry about losing control of myself + hurting you (+ the, \u201cahem\u201d, bathroom","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2017-07-26T15:48:52+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-07-27T14:08:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1500,"height":1216,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Charlie Fox","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Charlie Fox","Est. reading time":"16 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/"},"author":{"name":"Charlie Fox","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a2ddd3e6dca55d380deef8002693358f"},"headline":"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood","datePublished":"2017-07-26T15:48:52+00:00","dateModified":"2017-07-27T14:08:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/"},"wordCount":3243,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001-1024x830.jpg","keywords":["California","children","eighties","family","family trouble","George Bush","Highway 101","Hollywood","Hollywood Freeway","homeless","homeless children","homeless people","Jim Goldberg","LA","Los Angeles","nineties","parents","photobook","photography","Raised by Wolves","Ronald Reagan","Washington Phillips"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/","name":"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001-1024x830.jpg","datePublished":"2017-07-26T15:48:52+00:00","dateModified":"2017-07-27T14:08:42+00:00","description":"Notes on Jim Goldberg\u2019s \u2018Raised by Wolves\u2019 (1995), a massive photobook that chronicles the lives of homeless kids in LA during the eighties and nineties.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/untitled_girl-with-dog001.jpg","width":1500,"height":1216},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/i-love-you-so-much-i-would-drink-your-blood\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I Love You So Much I Would Drink Your Blood"}]},{"@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\/a2ddd3e6dca55d380deef8002693358f","name":"Charlie Fox","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99a37a62ead0147a95676c6048ed20741f2cacb3c963a6c74babe029b2a0ea89?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/99a37a62ead0147a95676c6048ed20741f2cacb3c963a6c74babe029b2a0ea89?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Charlie Fox"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/cfox\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113030","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\/1137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113030"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113134,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113030\/revisions\/113134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}