{"id":13074,"date":"2011-03-17T13:24:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T17:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=13074"},"modified":"2011-03-18T10:30:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T14:30:14","slug":"the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our spring issue<\/a>\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission<\/a>,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is exposed, against his will, on the Internet. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Okay, so: mostly what I loved about this story was a meta-thing, which was that it was not true. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMeta-thing\u201d\u2014that sounds like a nefarious robot, or a late-night omelet. Anyway, I\u2019m with you; it\u2019s not true, it\u2019s fiction<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But I am still too traumatized from the daily onslaught of interactions with Internet people and their tsunami of experiences and opinions and consumer preferences to know how to fashion prose from anything other than what I know or feel at any given time actually happened and\/or was true. Which is to say, I know for a fact this story, \u201cEmission,\u201d about a twenty-something exposed on the Internet as a sexual deviant, is based, partly, on \u201creal-life events,\u201d because you admitted in an earlier e-mail to being inspired by a terrible night we spent with that dreadfully boring coke dealer someone inadvertently brought home one night after an n+1<\/em> party, a Tunisian I\u2019ve been condemned to wonder about repeatedly, unimaginatively, since Tunisia spread the Facebook meme of democracy across Arabia. <\/strong><\/p>\n

And yet, what I see as a composite sketch of an unremarkable, ruined evening becomes a vivid fable almost by magic once the characters have been outfitted with better names. There is Richard Monomian-cum<\/em>-Dick-cum<\/em> Mono\u2014conjuring up onanistic activities (su mano); dread diseases contracted through insanitary contact with adolescents; the lone son too simpleminded for his father\u2019s polynomials, his solitary life and single Google hit, et cetera, et cetera. And Emmanuelle and the unsavory fumes of her Emission blog, collateral damage of the benevolent reign of the omniscient God that is the Internet; fearless, prolific Emmanuelle who is crucified merely for delivering truth. May she rise again in the sequel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There won\u2019t be a sequel, I don\u2019t think (unless you decide to write one and post it online without approval).\u00a0But as for \u201cinspired by\u201d: yes, Methyl, the dealer in \u201cEmission\u201d is half based on that \u201cTunisian\u201d (read: New Jerseyan) coke dealer we brought home that night, who so mercilessly hit on you and, I believe, stayed for breakfast. My man\u2019s other half is another dealer who calls himself, seriously, Blo J. When I used that name in the story, Lorin suggested, \u201cChange it. No dealer\u2019s called that.\u201d Good edit, bad sense of reality. Let that be the slogan for the \u201cnew\u201d Paris Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

See, that would infuriate me! Almost every great career disappointment I can think of right now essentially came down to some gatekeeper telling me my story was too weird, too big, too crazy, unbelievable, that the \u201ccharacters\u201d weren\u2019t sufficiently sympathetic. But what about the part where it actually happened?<\/em> The world is nothing like your magazine editors and book agents would have you believe: it is much weirder. It has gotten so I\u2019m stubbornly defensive about literal facts. I\u2019m addicted to amassing evidence; I can\u2019t emerge from discovery. I\u2019ve become what I hated so much back in Catholic school: a nun made us write an essay on the question of whether Gregor Samsa did, actually, become a bug. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember this despite having repressed almost every other detail of high-school existence because I found it so infuriating that someone would bother an entire class<\/strong>\u2014generations of classes!\u2014with such a pointlessly literal question. But so much of the conversation about books seems consumed with zealous fact-finding pursuits into the real characters and intentions of authors: Who was and wasn\u2019t a raging misogynist\/communist\/hypocrite\/bourgeois snob? Is Josh Cohen so cagey and inscrutable because he\u2019s an asshole who thinks he\u2019s smarter than everyone else?<\/em> It seems to be an affliction larger than me and journalism and the Internet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moe, here is your new assignment. Answer the following questions: Was Samsa a bug? Was Kafka Samsa? Does that mean that Kafka was a bug? Can Kafka be Samsa-as-bug without becoming, himself, a bug? Would Kafka have to first become a bug before becoming Samsa? Or could Kafka become a bug first who, then, in an effort to understand his humanity, \u201cbecomes\u201d Samsa? And isn\u2019t the nature of that scare-quoted \u201cbecoming\u201d a sign of human, or humanish, intelligence otherwise unknown among the insects? Okay, here is how I understand The Metamorphosis<\/em> in contemporary terms: Kafka, tired of keeping his diary (that password-protected, or merely locked-drawer, blog), starts a real blog, online, on which he posts as a bug\u2014\u201cAbug\u201d\u2014and, because nobody reads his blog, he begins commenting on his \u201cown\u201d posts as \u201cSamsa.\u201d Academia, or rather the study of literature, begins when \u201cSamsa\u201d starts his own blog, which has more followers than \u201cthe original.”<\/p>\n

I want to talk about Emmanuelle. I think we were supposed to see Emmanuelle as a ruthless troll, a merciless snitch who lays waste to Mono\u2019s employment prospects with a bratty Tumblr, rendered invincible in part by the thin patina of feminist \u201cserviceyness\u201d in which she semicouched the original post. She totally sucked, almost as bad as her obsequious band of mostly anonymous commenters. (And did I already thank you for sending her to Princeton, which is one of the few schools more obnoxious than Penn?) <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

But anyway, my (typical? quite deliberately engineered) reaction to the blogger cunt was interesting to me precisely because I have personally detailed the pervy behavior of real-life dudes<\/a>, extensively, on the Internet, for pageviews. In all of my cases, of course, they were asking for it, but whether or not Richard Monomian \u201cdid\u201d what Emmanuelle says he \u201cdid\u201d doesn\u2019t matter, because merely thinking that scenario up bespeaks TOO MUCH INTERNET PORN. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The primary difference between your \u201cjournalism\u201d\u2014do you mind that I scared-up quotes for that, too? I don\u2019t mean to offend, just to say that there\u2019s a degree of personal\/avenging angel activism in what you do that\u2019s entirely of the Internet, and entirely at odds with that mid-twentieth-century journalistic ideal\/dodo bird we call objectivity<\/em>\u2014anyway, the primary difference between your \u201cjournalism,\u201d as I was saying, and Emmanuelle\u2019s ruthless trollism, is that you are\/were advocating for the validity of your own experience: you are\/were consciously transgressing that objectivity standard in favor of presenting the perspective of what might charitably be called \u201cthe I\u2019m trying to be objective subject,\u201d i.e., invoking that\u00a0common online belief that ostensibly dispassionate reporting is just one mode of reporting, one mode of many, and obviously cannot always be expected, but also might\u2014on occasion, every full moon\u2014be expected<\/em>, from someone like yourself who not only reports the \u201cnews,\u201d but also is the \u201cnews.\u201d Especially in your if-only rape situation, which was not witnessed by a third party, and certainly never adjudicated, the only standard we can maintain is that there can be no standard, and that if you say you were not raped, we have to believe that you were not raped (unless Paul Janka decides to claim otherwise, in which case I\u2019d believe, which is to say disbelieve, you both but would have Mr. Janka committed). Emmanuelle did not witness Mono\u2019s \u201ctransgression.\u201d And she certainly wasn\u2019t his victim.<\/p>\n

Is there anything unfortunate about you on the Internet? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Not yet. But there are a lot of Joshua Cohens.<\/p>\n

My name has always referred pretty much singularly to me, whereas your name is completely generic. An ex-boyfriend used to use his Hebrew name because he suffered from your same predicament. I recently reviewed a great book, The Economics of Good and Evil<\/em>, which postulated that Adam Smith is associated with \u201cinvisible hand\u201d market deism mostly because Adam Smith is a great name for a first man of economics. Are there any other formidable Joshua Cohens out there? I think I\u2019m Facebook friends with at least two, neither of whom, I am pretty sure, are you. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I know of: Joshua Cohen the political scientist, formerly of MIT, presently of Stanford; Joshua Cohen the mayor (D) of Annapolis, MD. I\u2019ve found: ten gynecologists, eighteen tax attorneys, three rabbis,\u00a0JC of Las Vegas ISO squash and\/or racquetball partners.\u00a0Joshua Lionel Cowen, formerly Cohen, inventor of the toy train. Yehoshua (my Hebrew name)\u00a0Cohen, the Lehi assassin and, later, bodyguard to Ben-Gurion. As for the Internet\u2014isn\u2019t it enough that we\u2019re friends in the flesh? I miss you!<\/p>\n

Yes! But are you a man with secrets, whose exposure on the Internet would be dismaying? I\u2019m only asking because you don\u2019t really seem like a guy who is hiding much. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m hiding everything, Moe. Secrets, like sweat glands, are necessary. Total transparency would deny me\u2014I don\u2019t know\u2014that useful 3 A.M. inner conflict? Public diction\u2014by which I mean exposing everything about myself online\u2014would hinder private contradiction, or let\u2019s say this inner inconcinnity I\u2019m nurturing, which I think might be necessary to creativity (translation: life\u2019s flaws are the work\u2019s perfection). How can you \u201ccontain multitudes,\u201d when the computer does it for you? Never underrate the value of the intropunitive! My parents taught me that. And the rabbis …<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been discreet, more than discreet. When a friend calls and I\u2019m doing something innocuous, like cooking dinner, I tell them I\u2019m reading, or running out to the movies. It\u2019s the surveillance I can\u2019t stand. For example: I\u2019m not home, I\u2019m in Kansas, but I am home. It\u2019s snowing out and seventy degrees. It\u2019s fifty years from now and I\u2019m reading this answer online. I\u2019m still not answering your question.<\/p>\n

When you say you have secrets, do you mean you might have surreptitiously enriched yourself via some privatization scheme in Eastern Europe? Big secrets? Or just secrets of the \u201cunfilmable night\u201d variety? Were I assigned to profile you would I turn up anything \u201csensational\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never enriched myself via privatization schemes in Eastern Europe. I once couriered a large sum of money over a border, a very large sum, so my, um, employer could avoid paying taxes, but I kept the suitcase closed (anyway, it was locked), and he paid me in dinner and\u2014let\u2019s just say he paid me in dinner. Were you assigned to profile me I\u2019d rush out and get an assignment to profile you\u2014we\u2019d ask for advances (indeed, it\u2019s a fantasy!), then take the Greyhound down to Atlantic City, where I\u2019d lose my share at poker then borrow from you, at interest so low it can only be offered by sympathetic (read: uninsured) financial reporters, and then I\u2019d act all magnanimous while \u201cI\u201d bought you drinks.<\/p>\n

I am curious what real-life Internet scandals might have inspired you. Unless that is one of those things about which you insist\u00a0on opacity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not insisting on opacity\u2014there wasn\u2019t one specific scandal that inspired. The idea wasn\u2019t to dramatize anything real, rather to write something \u201cexemplary\u201d (yes, yes, hello Cervantes!), something almost didactic, a story with a moral. As for women taking to Sunday hungover blogging in a Great Internet Feminist Rectification (GRIEF REC), I\u2019m not sure that such a hope, or suspicion, is anything more than typical male sexual paranoia: the result of the desire to be known as a sexual alpha (which is extremely male), at odds with the desire not to be known for having done \u201cwrong\u201d (which is extremely human).<\/p>\n

Readers know that the Internet was invented by\u00a0Jonathan Swift, Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/span><\/em>, 1721\u20131725.<\/p>\n

Like what you\u2019ve read? Purchase the issue<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is exposed, against his will, on the Internet. Okay, so: mostly what I loved about this story was a meta-thing, which was that it was not true. \u201cMeta-thing\u201d\u2014that sounds like a nefarious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[2001,71,1835,2000,1327,456,458,1852,426],"class_list":["post-13074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-emission","tag-fiction","tag-issue-196","tag-josh-cohen","tag-joshua-cohen","tag-lorin-stein","tag-moe-tkacik","tag-spring-issue","tag-the-paris-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen by Moe Tkacik<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 17, 2011 \u2013 In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is\" \/>\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\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen by Moe Tkacik\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 17, 2011 \u2013 In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\" \/>\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=\"2011-03-17T17:24:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-03-18T14:30:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"574\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"431\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Moe Tkacik\" \/>\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=\"Moe Tkacik\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Moe Tkacik\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9e429db6910def00abdcf250b5dfb604\"},\"headline\":\"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-17T17:24:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-18T14:30:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\"},\"wordCount\":1968,\"commentCount\":6,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Emission\",\"fiction\",\"Issue 196\",\"Josh Cohen\",\"Joshua Cohen\",\"Lorin Stein\",\"Moe Tkacik\",\"spring issue\",\"The Paris Review\"],\"articleSection\":[\"At Work\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\",\"name\":\"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen by Moe Tkacik\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-17T17:24:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-18T14:30:14+00:00\",\"description\":\"March 17, 2011 \u2013 In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg\",\"width\":574,\"height\":431},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen\"}]},{\"@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\/9e429db6910def00abdcf250b5dfb604\",\"name\":\"Moe Tkacik\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/81ea8d0490718ed633b270ceeeeb49eeec671f1a1c3e9d93036153ed25588977?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/81ea8d0490718ed633b270ceeeeb49eeec671f1a1c3e9d93036153ed25588977?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Moe Tkacik\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/mtkacik\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen by Moe Tkacik","description":"March 17, 2011 \u2013 In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is","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\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen by Moe Tkacik","og_description":"March 17, 2011 \u2013 In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2011-03-17T17:24:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-03-18T14:30:14+00:00","og_image":[{"width":574,"height":431,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Moe Tkacik","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Moe Tkacik","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/"},"author":{"name":"Moe Tkacik","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9e429db6910def00abdcf250b5dfb604"},"headline":"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen","datePublished":"2011-03-17T17:24:21+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-18T14:30:14+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/"},"wordCount":1968,"commentCount":6,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg","keywords":["Emission","fiction","Issue 196","Josh Cohen","Joshua Cohen","Lorin Stein","Moe Tkacik","spring issue","The Paris Review"],"articleSection":["At Work"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/","name":"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen by Moe Tkacik","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg","datePublished":"2011-03-17T17:24:21+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-18T14:30:14+00:00","description":"March 17, 2011 \u2013 In our spring issue\u2014out now\u2014Joshua Cohen\u2019s short story, \u201cEmission,\u201d tells of the comic misfortune of a drug dealer turned felon whose lewd past is","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Joshuacohen_BLOG1.jpg","width":574,"height":431},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/the-spring-issue-joshua-cohen\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Spring Issue: Joshua Cohen"}]},{"@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\/9e429db6910def00abdcf250b5dfb604","name":"Moe Tkacik","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/81ea8d0490718ed633b270ceeeeb49eeec671f1a1c3e9d93036153ed25588977?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/81ea8d0490718ed633b270ceeeeb49eeec671f1a1c3e9d93036153ed25588977?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Moe Tkacik"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/mtkacik\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074","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\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13074"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13126,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074\/revisions\/13126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}