{"id":133389,"date":"2019-02-06T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=133389"},"modified":"2019-02-06T10:36:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:36:45","slug":"stories-that-reclaim-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories That Reclaim the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

From Roger Dean\u2019s album cover for Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

My father and I saw each other only three times before he died. The first was when I was about ten, the second was in my early twenties, and the last doesn\u2019t matter right now. I want to tell you about the second time, when I went up to Syracuse to visit and he tried to make me join the GOP.<\/p>\n

Let me back up a little and explain that my mother is a black woman from Uganda and my dad was a white man from Syracuse, New York. He and my mother met in New York City in the late sixties, got married, had me, and promptly divorced. My mother and I stayed in Queens while my dad returned to Syracuse. He remarried quickly and had another son with my stepmother. Paul.<\/p>\n

When I finished college I enrolled in graduate school for writing. I\u2019d paid for undergrad with loans and grants, and debt already loomed over me. I showed up at my dad\u2019s place hoping he\u2019d cosign for my grad-school loans. I felt he owed me since he hadn\u2019t been in my life at all. Also, I felt like I\u2019d been on an epic quest just to reach this point. I got into Cornell University, but boy did I hate being there. Long winters, far from New York City, and the kind of dog-eat-dog atmosphere that would make a Wall Street trader sweat. But I\u2019d graduated. And now I wanted to go back<\/em> to school. More than that, I wanted to become a writer. Couldn\u2019t my dad see me as a marvel? Couldn\u2019t he support me just this once?<\/p>\n

Nope.<\/p>\n

At the time I felt incensed. In hindsight, I see he was a married man with a wife and a teenager to support; he worked as a parole officer, made a decent salary, but the man had never been well-off even once in his life. He wasn\u2019t cruel about it, but he would not help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the question of the loan out of the way, my father and brother invited me out to dinner. I still felt angry but I went along. Maybe if I sulked in front of him he\u2019d change his mind. Maybe, even with the disappointment, I still wanted to be around this stranger, my father. We went to a Chinese buffet they liked. Endless dumplings and beef fried rice and chicken wings were offered up as a consolation prize.<\/p>\n

On the ride back to their place, my father turned on the radio. This was 1995, and the voice playing through the speakers was Mr. Rush Limbaugh. These days I think Limbaugh, while still popular, has retreated a ways into the far-right antimatter universe. Back then, he was trailblazing the same hustle Bill O\u2019Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham would refine: scaring old white people for money. My dad was an old white person, and he loved Rush Limbaugh.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember what kind of bullshit Limbaugh was spewing. What I do remember is sitting in the front seat of my father\u2019s car while he and my brother shouted at me. \u201cListen! Listen! Rush is telling the truth!\u201d For the whole twenty-minute ride, these three men\u2014my dad, my brother, and Rush\u2014bellowed at me. I felt queasy from all the General Tso\u2019s chicken I\u2019d eaten at the buffet. But I felt even queasier with concern for my brother.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s second wife was Filipina. This meant my brother, Paul, was half Filipino. So the rhetoric of Limbaugh and my dad\u2014anti-immigrant and virulently xenophobic\u2014was literally about<\/em> my brother and his mother. And yet Paul parroted the phrases with no sense of irony.<\/p>\n

Paul shouted from the back of the car about \u201cenvironmental wackos\u201d whose policies were going to cause a \u201csecond violent American revolution.\u201d Where else could a fifteen-year-old raised in Syracuse have learned these ideas and phrases but from this blowhard? Not even my father got as pumped as his second son. Paul had such a sweet face most of the time. A big, guileless smile, and the hints of a puberty mustache that only made him seem more fragile, highlighted all the growing up he had yet to do. But what was he being raised to become? He couldn\u2019t be just like my father; his skin and his features would mark him. But these beliefs sure wouldn\u2019t make him welcome among those who looked more like him. He might become a kind of orphan, a man without a clan.<\/p>\n

As the car pulled into my father\u2019s garage, I realized Paul had basically spent his entire life being told a story by my father, by Rush Limbaugh, and, in the broadest sense, by the United States as a whole: the story of America, as related by a wildly unreliable narrator.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump won the election to become the president of the United States. On that night I recalled the car ride with my father and brother twenty-one years earlier. The familiar sensation of having men shouting lies in my ear: Listen! Listen! He\u2019s telling the truth!<\/em><\/p>\n

My wife and I turned off the TV soon after the election results were called. We got into bed and for a while we lay there quietly. My wife is a writer and an academic, too. Over the years she\u2019s given me countless insights about the hurdles women face as they struggle for unbiased student evaluations, for promotions, for tenure. Her stories of the countless humiliations and the second-guessing and the problem of \u201cunlikability\u201d returned to me on election night. I felt like a child who must be told something a thousand times before he truly understands it. I turned to my wife and said, \u201cDamn, this country hates women.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cYou\u2019re only now<\/em> just figuring that out?\u201d<\/p>\n

She patted me gently, kissed me once. She eyed me with the same look of concern, even pity, I must\u2019ve shown Paul all those years ago. My brother hadn\u2019t been the only one being fed falsehoods all his life.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In January 2000, on C-SPAN, Brian Lamb interviewed Howard Zinn\u2014historian and author of A People\u2019s History of the United States<\/em>. The jacket copy describes the book as \u201cthe only volume to tell America\u2019s story from the point of view of\u2014and in the words of\u2014America\u2019s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers.\u201d The cover of an edition published back in 2005 also states: \u201cMore than two million copies sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point in the interview, Zinn explains that the first edition of his now-legendary text came out in 1980 and had a print run of five thousand hardcovers. He laughed at the number, as one can only do with the benefit of hindsight. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know what would happen to it,\u201d he said. \u201cNeither did I.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zinn\u2019s history of the United States begins not with Columbus discovering America, but with the Arawak of the Bahama Islands discovering Columbus. His large ship appears and the Arawak swim out to greet him and his crew. Zinn quotes Columbus\u2019s journals: \u201cThey were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features \u2026 They do not bear arms, and do not know them \u2026 They would make fine servants \u2026 With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.\u201d This is on the first damn page of the book. Try to contemplate what an educational tremor this must have caused in 1980.<\/p>\n

Hell, even today whole swaths of the U.S. population regularly go into a rage at the idea of genuine historical accuracy. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education, for instance, made use of a history textbook that included this gem: \u201cMost white Southerners swallowed whatever resentment they felt over African-American suffrage and participation in government.\u201d I\u2019m looking forward to the follow-up textbook about all the white Southerners who protested against Jim Crow laws!<\/p>\n

Only two pages further into his book, Zinn relates, in a short paragraph, the experience of a sailor in Columbus\u2019s crew. On October 12, 1492, a man named Rodrigo spots the sands of an island in the Bahamas in the moonlight. A promise has been made to all onboard: The first man to spot land will be rewarded with a pension of ten thousand maravedis<\/em> (medieval Spanish coins; it would amount to about five hundred and forty U.S. dollars today). That was ten thousand maravedis<\/em> a year for life<\/em>. Rodrigo gave word of what he\u2019d seen, but he never received the prize. Why? Columbus said he\u2019d seen it the evening before. Columbus collected the loot. Oh, Christopher. You shady motherfucker.<\/p>\n

A People\u2019s Future of the United States<\/em>\u2014an anthology of speculative stories I\u2019ve put together with John Joseph Adams\u2014is, in a sense, inspired not by those Arawak men and women who swam out to greet Columbus\u2019s ship nor by Rodrigo, who was cheated of his reward. Instead this book is inspired by the countless generations of offspring who lost the right to forge futures of their own making.<\/p>\n

Zinn had already written about our past, so my coeditor and I decided to ask a gang of incredible writers to imagine the years, decades, even the centuries, to come. And to have tales told by those, and\/or about those, who history often sees fit to forget. \u201cThere is no such thing as impartial history,\u201d Zinn once said. He added, \u201cThe chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Think of this collection of stories, then, as important speculative data. A portrait of this country as it might become, the future of the United States.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeking stories that explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice: narratives that release us from the chokehold of the history and mythology of the past \u2026 and writing that gives us new futures to believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the gist of how our invitations read. John and I gave our writers a lot of leeway when it came to the stories themselves. One of the benefits of soliciting an astoundingly talented crew is that you can trust them to interpret the theme in ways that will be much more startling and ambitious than you could ever guess.<\/p>\n

So many of these tales are vivid with struggle and hardship, but its characters don\u2019t flee, they fight\u2014whether it\u2019s N.\u2009K. Jemisin\u2019s dragon riders, A. Merc Rustad\u2019s covert commandos, or Alice Sola Kim\u2019s time-traveling best friend. While some of these stories depict battles with external foes there are also those that wrestle with the enemies within. Violet Allen\u2019s characters are caught in mind games with troubling consequences and Kai Cheng Thom\u2019s must decide if they will change themselves or change the world. G. Willow Wilson turns a classroom exam into a test of communal bravery and Charles Yu relates the tale of a fight with an android that would\u2019ve totally voted for Trump.<\/p>\n

All that and I\u2019ve hardly touched on the depth and breadth of brilliance in this anthology. As this collection came together, I found myself wishing I\u2019d had this book with me in Syracuse all those years ago. I might\u2019ve turned toward my brother, Paul, and put this book in his hands. I could\u2019ve told him that this<\/em> was the United States, a much broader portrait of his country than anything he would ever hear on right-wing talk radio. I might\u2019ve asked him to imagine a future where he didn\u2019t have to parrot the speech of bullies and tormentors. Instead, he might speak his own language, which is to say his own truth. He might come to believe he mattered most in a story. Not secondary, but primary. Not the foreign villain, but the homegrown hero. I could\u2019ve used it to convince him the future belonged to him as much as anyone.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m honest, I could\u2019ve used this book myself long ago. Hell, I still need this book. Maybe you do, too. You might know others just as desperate for stories like these. If so, pass them on. Because the future is ours.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Victor LaValle is the author of six previous works of fiction: three novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by the <\/em>New York Times Book Review, the <\/em>Los Angeles Times, the <\/em>Washington Post, the <\/em>Chicago Tribune, <\/em>The Nation, and <\/em>Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the key to Southeast Queens. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids, and teaches at Columbia University.<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpted from <\/em>A People\u2019s Future of the United States<\/a>, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams. Copyright 2019 by Victor LaValle. Excerpted by permission of One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[48976,48977,48981,21637,28457,48984,12036,19381,48980,48983,2861,27699,48975,45534,48978,41656,15497,200,48979,16962,9675,474,48982],"class_list":["post-133389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-a-peoples-future-of-the-united-states","tag-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states","tag-a-merc-rustad","tag-alice-sola-kim","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-charles-yu","tag-christopher-columbus","tag-donald-trump","tag-dragon","tag-g-willow-wilson","tag-history","tag-howard-zinn","tag-john-joseph-adams","tag-kai-cheng-thom","tag-laura-ingraham","tag-n-k-jemisin","tag-rush-limbaugh","tag-science-fiction","tag-sean-hannity","tag-speculative-fiction","tag-syracuse","tag-victor-lavalle","tag-violet-allen"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStories That Reclaim the Future by Victor LaValle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.\" \/>\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\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stories That Reclaim the Future by Victor LaValle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 6, 2019 \u2013 Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\" \/>\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=\"2019-02-06T14:00:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-02-06T15:36:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Victor LaValle\" \/>\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=\"Victor LaValle\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Victor LaValle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c25e2b96438cce837dd40b1f403680\"},\"headline\":\"Stories That Reclaim the Future\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-06T14:00:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-06T15:36:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\"},\"wordCount\":2235,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373-1024x640.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"A People\u2019s Future of the United States\",\"A People\u2019s History of the United States\",\"A. Merc Rustad\",\"Alice Sola Kim\",\"Bill O'Reilly\",\"Charles Yu\",\"Christopher Columbus\",\"Donald Trump\",\"dragon\",\"G. Willow Wilson\",\"history\",\"Howard Zinn\",\"John Joseph Adams\",\"Kai Cheng Thom\",\"Laura Ingraham\",\"N. K. Jemisin\",\"Rush Limbaugh\",\"science fiction\",\"Sean Hannity\",\"speculative fiction\",\"Syracuse\",\"Victor LaValle\",\"Violet Allen\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\",\"name\":\"Stories That Reclaim the Future by Victor LaValle\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373-1024x640.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-06T14:00:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-06T15:36:45+00:00\",\"description\":\"Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1200,\"caption\":\"From Roger Dean\u2019s album cover for Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe.\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Stories That Reclaim the Future\"}]},{\"@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\/d6c25e2b96438cce837dd40b1f403680\",\"name\":\"Victor LaValle\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9bb3ab4fd4d2741860e5372dae170344151b8d0f797dc297ec06efa8ec2820f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9bb3ab4fd4d2741860e5372dae170344151b8d0f797dc297ec06efa8ec2820f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Victor LaValle\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/vlavalle\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stories That Reclaim the Future by Victor LaValle","description":"Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.","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\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stories That Reclaim the Future by Victor LaValle","og_description":"February 6, 2019 \u2013 Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2019-02-06T14:00:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-02-06T15:36:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":1200,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Victor LaValle","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Victor LaValle","Est. reading time":"11 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/"},"author":{"name":"Victor LaValle","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c25e2b96438cce837dd40b1f403680"},"headline":"Stories That Reclaim the Future","datePublished":"2019-02-06T14:00:09+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-06T15:36:45+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/"},"wordCount":2235,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373-1024x640.jpg","keywords":["A People\u2019s Future of the United States","A People\u2019s History of the United States","A. Merc Rustad","Alice Sola Kim","Bill O'Reilly","Charles Yu","Christopher Columbus","Donald Trump","dragon","G. Willow Wilson","history","Howard Zinn","John Joseph Adams","Kai Cheng Thom","Laura Ingraham","N. K. Jemisin","Rush Limbaugh","science fiction","Sean Hannity","speculative fiction","Syracuse","Victor LaValle","Violet Allen"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/","name":"Stories That Reclaim the Future by Victor LaValle","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373-1024x640.jpg","datePublished":"2019-02-06T14:00:09+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-06T15:36:45+00:00","description":"Speculative fiction has the potential to paint a much broader portrait of the United States than the one history books often portray.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/315373.jpg","width":1920,"height":1200,"caption":"From Roger Dean\u2019s album cover for Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/stories-that-reclaim-the-future\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stories That Reclaim the Future"}]},{"@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\/d6c25e2b96438cce837dd40b1f403680","name":"Victor LaValle","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9bb3ab4fd4d2741860e5372dae170344151b8d0f797dc297ec06efa8ec2820f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9bb3ab4fd4d2741860e5372dae170344151b8d0f797dc297ec06efa8ec2820f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Victor LaValle"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/vlavalle\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133389","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\/1687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133389"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133416,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133389\/revisions\/133416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}