{"id":115192,"date":"2017-09-08T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T17:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=115192"},"modified":"2017-09-13T10:33:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T14:33:48","slug":"staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Larry Rivers, Vocabulary Lesson (Polish)<\/em>, oil on canvas, 22 1\/4″ x 33″. Courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery \u00a9 Larry Rivers Foundation \/ Licensed by VAGA.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I know about the poets of my generation, I started to learn, in the late nineties, by reading the young critic Stephen Burt. Many of the poets he wrote about seemed forbidding, but he tried to make them inviting. His own poems were often disarmingly direct. One line, from his poem \u201cKudzu\u201d\u2014\u201clike the body I hated then, and hate\u201d\u2014still rings out to me twenty years later from a blur of more elliptical work. Now Stephen also goes by Steph and Stephanie, and their new collection, Advice from the Lights<\/em><\/a>, has been my subway reading for the past two weeks, especially \u201cSadder,\u201d an elegy to the poet C. D. Wright, and Burt\u2019s imitations of Callimachus, and the many evocations of childhood in a \u201cwrong\u201d body:<\/p>\n

O grapefruit (as color and flavor). O never quite rightly tied laces. O look,
\nup there on the uneven climbing bars,
\ntoo hot to touch where the sun touches, now that it\u2019s spring,<\/p>\n

the shadow of a tarp, like a sail between sailors
\nand thin swings that make no decision, like weather vanes.<\/p>\n

O think of the lost Chuck Taylors. The lost Mary Janes. \u00a0\u2014Lorin Stein<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Larry Rivers\u2019s painting of Maxine Groffsky appears on the cover of our new issue, and I\u2019m pleased as punch. I\u2019ve long been an admirer of Rivers\u2019s art and feel a kind of greedy affection for it: I never tire of seeing it. This week, \u201c(Re)Appropriations<\/a>,\u201d a small survey of works\u2014more than twenty paintings, collages, drawings, sculptures and relief paintings\u2014opened at Tibor de Nagy in New York. The exhibition displays the changes in his work over five decades, but it\u2019s hard not to get hung up looking at his life-size painting of a boldly nude (except for boots) Frank O\u2019Hara, from 1954, and the collages from the early sixties, which are gorgeously tactile. I admire the way his representations\u00a0of friends, cultural objects, and historical figures are only partially rendered on the canvas, as though they are already drifting out of River\u2019s view just as he has turned to look at them. \u2014Nicole Rudick\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you were given a sourdough starter by the person who delivers your takeout, would you keep it alive? When Lois Clary, the protagonist of Robin Sloan\u2019s new novel,\u00a0Sourdough<\/em><\/a>, does just that, she discovers that her starter contains mysterious powers, and begins baking obsessively. Clary revels, in a foggy, overworked sort of way, in the labor of baking and feeding her starter during her off hours from General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company that is \u201con a quest to end work.\u201d She falls in with a strange crowd who work at a secret, yet to be opened, farmers market on Alameda Island whose members specialize in experimental foods. Before they know it, their specialized work begins to overlap and they start working together organically, \u201cfate\u201d playing out like some kind of microbial yeast toward an unknown goal. Sourdough<\/em> has delicious characters: Agrippa, the goatherd and cheese maker, who knows more about microbes than anyone; Horace, the market\u2019s librarian; and Dr. Klamath, who runs the Slurry company, a thinly veiled Soylent stand-in, not far from where I grew up outside of Fresno. If you\u2019ve ever been confused about what\u2019s artificial and what\u2019s authentic\u2014can you really tell anymore?\u2014Sourdough<\/em> is a book for you. \u2014Jeffery Gleaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From the cover of Advice from the Lights<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though I\u2019ll never tire of announcing it, it is old news by now that Arundhati Roy\u2019s second novel in twenty years is out and fabulous. \u201cOut\u201d however, is not quite right. Without getting into the grad-school hermeneutics, which the book so cheekily avoids, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness<\/em><\/a> traverses all the borders and complicates all the rules. It was my undying love of The God of Small Things<\/em> (the tangerine transistor, the pickles, the love laws), rather than my fluency in Roy\u2019s formidable nonfiction, that drew me to The Ministry<\/em>, but I had to drop my distinction between her fiction and nonfiction almost immediately. Statistics, testimonies, and political criticism are inseparable from the plot, which concerns Anjum, who is a hijra<\/em>, or \u201cthird gender,\u201d and the family she raises around her. In Peter Pan<\/em>, the lost boys build a house around Wendy, making a little game of the Victorian home. It is in a similar spirit of fun and critique that Roy builds the house, the family, and the novel up around her renegade characters in a way that shelters but doesn\u2019t lock them in. There is an actual house at the center of the novel, too, built in a graveyard. The Ministry<\/em> doesn\u2019t desecrate the past, but she is breaking ground. \u2014Julia Berick<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first saw Annie Ernaux\u2019s Simple Passion<\/em><\/a> in a used bookstore, I was intrigued by its faded cover and shockingly slim spine. It took me just under an hour to finish the sixty-four-page book, but Ernaux\u2019s spare style and cunning language have lingered in my mind ever since. The autobiographical novel, published in 1991, chronicles an affair between an unnamed narrator and a married man. While the narrator reveals herself to the reader as a middle-aged writer, mother, and teacher living outside of Paris, she keeps her lover anonymous, only disclosing that he is of Eastern European descent. But he is almost entirely beside the point. Ernaux is compelled by obsession itself. She thoughtfully records the strange compulsions of lust, writing, \u201cI promised to send 200 francs to Unicef if he came to see me before a particular date\u201d and \u201cI would give money to the men and women sitting in the corridors of the Metro, making the wish that he would call me that evening.\u201d Ernaux bares witness to the intricacies of infatuation and the inexplicable behaviors to which anyone can fall victim while in the throes of obsession. \u2014Ruby Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

For fans of Ben Loory, it\u2019s been a six-year wait since the publication of his first collection of short stories, a fact he recognizes in the author\u2019s note for his new book, Tales of Falling and Flying<\/em><\/a>: \u201cMore stories! Sorry they took so long. Next one will be quicker.\u201d The stories have been worth the wait.\u00a0Tales\u00a0<\/em>is a collection of forty stories, each beginning with a simple image or idea: \u201cA man wakes up one morning to find that both his feet are missing\u201d; or \u201cOnce there was a squid who fell in love with the sun\u201d; or \u201cJames K. Polk used to keep bonsai trees up on the roof of the White House.\u201d What comes next is frequently comical and dark, often heartwarming, nearly always fantastical, and consistently entertaining. Some, like \u201cThe Madman,\u201d are haunting in their portrayals of human cruelty; others make you see the joys of imagination anew, like \u201cThe Monster,\u201d in which a boy and the monster in his closet \u201csit \u2026 all afternoon, giving names to the world.\u201d In his appearance on Brad Listi\u2019s\u00a0Otherppl<\/em>\u00a0podcast<\/a>\u00a0last week, Loory discussed how integral emotion is to his work. As he sees it, a story will not be good if the reader is not affected by it. \u201cThat\u2019s the only way to get a good story,\u201d he told Listi. By that measure, and by almost any other, these stories are a success. \u2014Joel Pinckney<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jeff Dolven, at work on Take Care<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

What happens when you lock the poet and critic Jeff Dolven in a room for twenty-four hours with (a) a computer and (b) a catalogue for Braintree Scientific, \u201can American company that manufactures lab products used in experiments on rats and mice\u201d? This was the experiment undertaken last May by Cabinet Books as part of its Twenty-Four-Hour Book Series. The result, Take Care<\/em><\/a>, is a seventy-nine-page meditation on what it means to care for animals, equipment, and each other. (\u201cThis reflex to pure care … may also be triggered by cuteness, against which there is little defense. Perhaps the Braintree cover illustrator knew this, for the Venus-rat, whatever she is, is not exactly cute.\u201d)\u00a0\u2014L.S.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to suggest you watch the entirety of\u00a0Twin Peaks: The Return<\/i><\/a>, which ended last Sunday. Doing so would be disingenuous because I haven\u2019t finished the series yet myself. (The show is such a strange, one-time thing that I want to prolong it indefinitely.) Furthermore, an eighteen-hour-long piece of media\u2014especially one with as many surreal, puzzling, frustrating detours as The Return<\/i>\u2014is not a commitment to be taken lightly. But I can recommend the eighth episode of the series without caveats. I don\u2019t want to say too much because it\u2019s such a pure, haunting experience in itself, but it\u2019s essentially a stand-alone hour of television that functions as a David Lynch film in miniature. There are shades of 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/i>, whizzing pops of color and screaming violins, and the back half of the episode feels like a final distillation of Lynch\u2019s lifetime obsession with small-town America. He\u00a0hasn\u2019t put out a movie since 2006; this might be the closest thing we get to another Blue Velvet<\/i>\u00a0or Fire Walk with Me<\/i>, and we should cherish it. \u2014Brian Ransom<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  What I know about the poets of my generation, I started to learn, in the late nineties, by reading the young critic Stephen Burt. Many of the poets he wrote about seemed forbidding, but he tried to make them inviting. His own poems were often disarmingly direct. One line, from his poem \u201cKudzu\u201d\u2014\u201clike the […]<\/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":[1162,22974,35,4702,14707,30494,13748,30493,30492,1450,30491,7745,30500,11354,8892,15200,2633,17488,15606,79,30499,971,28054,3685,5090,30496,20629,16297,67,3065,16499,165,12147,24712,30498,26913,18708,54,4701,30497,18503,6688,30495],"class_list":["post-115192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-2001-a-space-odyssey","tag-annie-ernaux","tag-art","tag-arundhati-roy","tag-baking","tag-ben-loory","tag-blue-velvet","tag-brad-listi","tag-braintree-scientific","tag-c-d-wright","tag-cabinet-books","tag-cabinet-magazine","tag-callimachus","tag-cheese","tag-childhood","tag-compulsion","tag-david-lynch","tag-emotion","tag-farmers-markets","tag-film","tag-fire-walk-with-me","tag-frank-ohara","tag-fresno","tag-jeff-dolven","tag-larry-rivers","tag-lost-boys","tag-maxine-groffsky","tag-obsession","tag-painting","tag-peter-pan","tag-podcasts","tag-poetry","tag-robin-sloan","tag-robotics","tag-sourdough","tag-soylent","tag-stephen-burt","tag-television","tag-the-god-of-small-things","tag-the-ministry-of-utmost-happiness","tag-tibor-de-nagy","tag-twin-peaks","tag-unicef"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaff Picks: Stephen Burt, Annie Ernaux, and Ben Loory<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 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\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 8, 2017 \u2013   What I know about the poets of my generation, I started to learn, in the late nineties, by reading the young critic Stephen Burt. Many of the poets\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\" \/>\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=\"2017-09-08T17:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-09-13T14:33:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"795\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"580\" \/>\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=\"8 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\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-09-08T17:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-09-13T14:33:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\"},\"wordCount\":1587,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"2001: A Space Odyssey\",\"Annie Ernaux\",\"art\",\"Arundhati Roy\",\"baking\",\"Ben Loory\",\"Blue Velvet\",\"Brad Listi\",\"Braintree Scientific\",\"C. D. Wright\",\"Cabinet Books\",\"Cabinet Magazine\",\"Callimachus\",\"cheese\",\"childhood\",\"compulsion\",\"David Lynch\",\"emotion\",\"farmers markets\",\"film\",\"Fire Walk with Me\",\"Frank O'Hara\",\"Fresno\",\"Jeff Dolven\",\"Larry Rivers\",\"Lost Boys\",\"Maxine Groffsky\",\"obsession\",\"painting\",\"Peter Pan\",\"podcasts\",\"poetry\",\"Robin Sloan\",\"robotics\",\"sourdough\",\"Soylent\",\"Stephen Burt\",\"television\",\"The God of Small Things\",\"The Ministry of Utmost Happiness\",\"Tibor de Nagy\",\"Twin Peaks\",\"Unicef\"],\"articleSection\":[\"This Week\u2019s Reading\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\",\"name\":\"Staff Picks: Stephen Burt, Annie Ernaux, and Ben Loory\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-09-08T17:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-09-13T14:33:48+00:00\",\"description\":\"What the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 is reading this week.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness\"}]},{\"@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: Stephen Burt, Annie Ernaux, and Ben Loory","description":"What the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 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\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness by The Paris Review","og_description":"September 8, 2017 \u2013   What I know about the poets of my generation, I started to learn, in the late nineties, by reading the young critic Stephen Burt. Many of the poets","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2017-09-08T17:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-09-13T14:33:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":795,"height":580,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.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":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/"},"author":{"name":"The Paris Review","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e"},"headline":"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness","datePublished":"2017-09-08T17:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2017-09-13T14:33:48+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/"},"wordCount":1587,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg","keywords":["2001: A Space Odyssey","Annie Ernaux","art","Arundhati Roy","baking","Ben Loory","Blue Velvet","Brad Listi","Braintree Scientific","C. D. Wright","Cabinet Books","Cabinet Magazine","Callimachus","cheese","childhood","compulsion","David Lynch","emotion","farmers markets","film","Fire Walk with Me","Frank O'Hara","Fresno","Jeff Dolven","Larry Rivers","Lost Boys","Maxine Groffsky","obsession","painting","Peter Pan","podcasts","poetry","Robin Sloan","robotics","sourdough","Soylent","Stephen Burt","television","The God of Small Things","The Ministry of Utmost Happiness","Tibor de Nagy","Twin Peaks","Unicef"],"articleSection":["This Week\u2019s Reading"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/","name":"Staff Picks: Stephen Burt, Annie Ernaux, and Ben Loory","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg","datePublished":"2017-09-08T17:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2017-09-13T14:33:48+00:00","description":"What the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 is reading this week.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/dd805910b5b4aea0f7c64fe08ef05d7d.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/staff-picks-cruelty-obsession-cheekiness\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Staff Picks: Cruelty, Obsession, Cheekiness"}]},{"@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\/115192","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=115192"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115454,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115192\/revisions\/115454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}