{"id":118473,"date":"2017-11-22T11:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T16:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=118473"},"modified":"2026-03-16T11:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:53:15","slug":"all-this-blood-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/","title":{"rendered":"All This Blood and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the\u00a0fourth installment of Nina<\/em>\u00a0MacLaughlin\u2019s\u00a0Novemberance<\/a>\u00a0column, which will run every Wednesday this month.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jennie Brownscombe, The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth<\/em>, 1914.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The field where I played soccer before I had breasts was called Metacomet Park. A nylon net full of balls would be spilled on the field for drills, and we ate orange wedges at halftime. Metacomet, known otherwise as Metacom or King Philip, was a Wampanoag chief, and in 1676, fifty-six years after the Pilgrims dropped anchor in Plymouth, he was assassinated in a swamp. The Puritans dismembered him, tore apart his limbs, hung his body parts in trees. The man who shot him got his hand as a trophy. For over twenty years, his head was displayed on a stake in Plymouth.<\/p>\n

Around the time that I played soccer at Metacomet, I also took walks with my mother in the fields near our house. Now those fields are no longer fields; they\u2019re a subdivision where houses rise out of the land like crops, lined and alike, and the driveways arc at the same angles and the cars in the driveways are large and the bushes are tidy and round and all is neat and safe and lobotomizing. When my mother and I walked in the fields, no road or roof in sight, I thought about arriving on a land with no houses, with no streets or sockets or sinks, with no supermarkets to buy Fruit Roll-Ups or grapes. I imagined myself stepping onto the sand, seeing trees and high grass at sway in the wind. Now what?<\/em> You\u2019d have to be brave, I thought, facing that space. How do you just create a whole new world? I learned later that wasn\u2019t the right question. A world had already been created in that place. How do you steal a world? How do you destroy it? How do you rewrite the story so it sounds so uncomplicated?\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a story about Metacomet, Washington Irving writes: \u201cSociety is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this pruning, smoothing, and de-wilding; all this denial of mess and tangle; all this false comfort found on the surface of things. In my family, we don\u2019t make much eye contact with each other. Rarely do we hug. We laugh hard and tell the same stories and like being around each other, but we do not look each other in the eye. I have wondered about this. Growing up, I felt bewildered at other people\u2019s houses, seeing my friends embraced by their parents, their heads petted, their faces kissed. How strange, I thought. When we gather now, we laugh and the feeling is mostly of ease and well-being but discomfort, too, because who is more frustrating and devastating than the members of your family? The comfort and discomfort of brothers and sisters and parents, of knowing each other so deeply and so well, in ways we don\u2019t ever know other people, and also not knowing each other at all. There\u2019s a distance there, born of embarrassment. It\u2019s the embarrassment of intimacy, of this shared blood chugging in the veins, and the embarrassment of mortality, You will be gone, and you will be gone, and I will be gone, and I cannot know that and meet your eyes right now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gaston Bachelard ranks intimacy as the ultimate aim, our highest value. Mark Doty, in his slim book Still Life with Oysters and Lemon<\/em>, grapples with the view:<\/p>\n

I resist this statement at first. What about artistic achievement, or moral courage, or heroism, or altruistic acts, or work in the cause of social change? What about wealth or accomplishment? And yet something about it rings true, finally\u2014that what we want is to be brought into relation, to be inside, within. Perhaps it\u2019s true that nothing matters more to us than that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bachelard writes of the memory of first homes, of being within our original nests: \u201cIf we return to the old home as to a nest, it is because memories are dreams, because the home of other days has become a great image of lost intimacy.\u201d How do we create, or re-create, that feeling of quiet and sanctuary, of being enclosed, enwombed, and held? And how do we balance that with a need for movement, independence, thrill, and elsewhere? Doty writes of the dueling impulses between home and away, the need \u201cfor the deep solid place of roots and belonging\u201d and \u201cthe desire for travel and motion, for the single separate spark of the self fiercely moving forward, out into time, into the great absorbing stream of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

That great absorbing stream is exactly where Ishmael aims himself when it\u2019s a damp, drizzly November in his soul. When he turns grim about the mouth, he takes to the sea where \u201cthe great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open.\u201d Away from home, rootless, wild, one can ask the simpler questions. One can find out what one misses and find out what one needs. Getting out is also another way of looking in<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that Melville raises Narcissus in those opening paragraphs of Moby Dick<\/em>, Narcissus who gazes at his rippling reflection and cannot grasp \u201cthe tormenting, mild image\u201d and so plunges in and drowns. Every water surface, velvet smooth, offers up that tormenting image, with the \u201cungraspable phantom of life\u201d below it. Lean over. Look. What\u2019s there? What\u2019s on the other side of that smooth surface? Fathomless depths, total dark, the great yawn, the shadow, the gape, the frightening mess that\u2019s easier to avoid. Look and look. The surface is penetrable, just slip on through, but you don\u2019t come out, or maybe you just don\u2019t come out the same.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s why we have a hard time holding each other\u2019s eyes in my family: to look too long is to risk that plunge, to see ourselves reflected back and see what\u2019s there beyond. We face ourselves, we face the history inherited to us, and we rush backward in time to an original nest, to an open field, to a source we only rarely get to touch.<\/p>\n

In that aching intimacy between the ones who share blood, the ungraspable phantom lives behind their eyes. \u201cI love to sail forbidden seas,\u201d claims Ishmael, \u201cand land on barbarous coasts.\u201d That\u2019s what\u2019s there to be found when one veers toward the darker, less hospitable pockets of our minds and selves. \u201cI am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote,\u201d says Ishmael. We run, and we return.<\/p>\n

In a letter\u00a0from 1865, Emily Dickinson, who never left New England, writes, \u201cIt is also November. The noons are more laconic and the sundowns sterner …\u00a0 \u2014is still with the sister who put her child in an ice nest last Monday forenoon\u00a0… I notice where Death has been introduced, he frequently calls, making it desirable to forestall his advances.\u201d And she goes on to write of the death of the maid of the family. \u201cI winced at her loss, because I was in the habit of her.\u201d Being in the habit of someone is a good way to describe love. What is love if not a habit? An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary\u2014a deepest sort of intimacy\u2014and a tendency or practice that\u2019s especially hard to give up. And even more, to in<\/em>habit. I am in the habit of you. I inhabit you. I exist within.<\/p>\n

And maybe, like Doty says, nothing matters more. But it can be a hard place to be. So we take to sea, hurl ourselves into the world. But those remote and barbarous coasts are close by, too, right across the table, and there to be found as you lock eyes for a moment passing a plate that\u2019s full and warm. We leave home and return to it. We re-create approximations of it from memory or imagination. We learn and then learn more. The way I was taught, Thanksgiving was all so simple and so lovely in its aims\u2014food and gratitude, a feast to celebrate the bounty of the harvest. It wasn\u2019t until much later that I learned how much more complicated it is, and the part we play in that history. It\u2019s hard to look and necessary to look, to know ourselves and know the world, to know that a thieving took place, and a smoothing of the surface of the story. Look, and look harder, to better reckon with who we are and what we come from, and to mourn what\u2019s been taken by violence or time.<\/p>\n

During these feast days, dare the precipice. Look out and in, deep as you can. As you gather around a table to celebrate the bounty of the harvest, let things be messy and strange and complicated. How strange it is, to exist within, to belong, and how alienating, to be inside and outside at the same time, part of something and separate. How painful, how lucky, all this blood and love. A plate passed across space, a laugh, an easy or uneasy acknowledgment: here we are. For now, here we all are. And that is plenty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nina MacLaughlin is a writer and carpenter in Cambridge, Massachusetts<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Read earlier installments of Novemberance here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the\u00a0fourth installment of Nina\u00a0MacLaughlin\u2019s\u00a0Novemberance\u00a0column, which will run every Wednesday this month.\u00a0   The field where I played soccer before I had breasts was called Metacomet Park. A nylon net full of balls would be spilled on the field for drills, and we ate orange wedges at halftime. Metacomet, known otherwise as Metacom or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31427],"tags":[2056,14126,22941,31833,952,9149,1428,31834],"class_list":["post-118473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-novemberance","tag-emily-dickinson","tag-gaston-bachelard","tag-mark-doty","tag-metacomet-park","tag-moby-dick","tag-pilgrims","tag-thanksgiving","tag-till-life-with-oysters-and-lemon"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAll This Blood and Love<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Thanksgiving, we find ourselves faced with all this smoothing and de-wilding, all this false comfort found on the surface of things.\" \/>\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\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"All This Blood and Love by Nina MacLaughlin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 22, 2017 \u2013 This is the\u00a0fourth installment of Nina\u00a0MacLaughlin\u2019s\u00a0Novemberance\u00a0column, which will run every Wednesday this month.\u00a0   The field where I played\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\" \/>\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=\"2017-11-22T16:00:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-16T15:53:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nina MacLaughlin\" \/>\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=\"Nina MacLaughlin\" \/>\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\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nina MacLaughlin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838\"},\"headline\":\"All This Blood and Love\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-22T16:00:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-16T15:53:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\"},\"wordCount\":1621,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b-1024x768.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Emily Dickinson\",\"Gaston Bachelard\",\"Mark Doty\",\"Metacomet Park\",\"Moby Dick\",\"Pilgrims\",\"Thanksgiving\",\"till Life with Oysters and Lemon\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Novemberance\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\",\"name\":\"All This Blood and Love\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b-1024x768.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-22T16:00:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-16T15:53:15+00:00\",\"description\":\"On Thanksgiving, we find ourselves faced with all this smoothing and de-wilding, all this false comfort found on the surface of things.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":960,\"caption\":\"Jennie Brownscombe, The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, 1914\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"All This Blood and Love\"}]},{\"@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\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838\",\"name\":\"Nina MacLaughlin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nina MacLaughlin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/nmaclaughlin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"All This Blood and Love","description":"On Thanksgiving, we find ourselves faced with all this smoothing and de-wilding, all this false comfort found on the surface of things.","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\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"All This Blood and Love by Nina MacLaughlin","og_description":"November 22, 2017 \u2013 This is the\u00a0fourth installment of Nina\u00a0MacLaughlin\u2019s\u00a0Novemberance\u00a0column, which will run every Wednesday this month.\u00a0   The field where I played","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2017-11-22T16:00:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-03-16T15:53:15+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":960,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nina MacLaughlin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nina MacLaughlin","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/"},"author":{"name":"Nina MacLaughlin","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838"},"headline":"All This Blood and Love","datePublished":"2017-11-22T16:00:51+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-16T15:53:15+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/"},"wordCount":1621,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b-1024x768.jpg","keywords":["Emily Dickinson","Gaston Bachelard","Mark Doty","Metacomet Park","Moby Dick","Pilgrims","Thanksgiving","till Life with Oysters and Lemon"],"articleSection":["Novemberance"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/","name":"All This Blood and Love","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b-1024x768.jpg","datePublished":"2017-11-22T16:00:51+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-16T15:53:15+00:00","description":"On Thanksgiving, we find ourselves faced with all this smoothing and de-wilding, all this false comfort found on the surface of things.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/b2184e4aebbece8a960b5bbafcf5e28b.jpg","width":1280,"height":960,"caption":"Jennie Brownscombe, The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, 1914"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/22\/all-this-blood-and-love\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"All This Blood and Love"}]},{"@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\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838","name":"Nina MacLaughlin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nina MacLaughlin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/nmaclaughlin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118473","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\/2669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118473"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118538,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118473\/revisions\/118538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}