{"id":135568,"date":"2019-04-16T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=135568"},"modified":"2019-04-16T17:08:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:08:24","slug":"so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/","title":{"rendered":"So What If Lincoln Was Gay?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you need him to be gay?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is how a friend (urban, liberal, male) responded when I told him I was working on a historical novel about Abraham Lincoln\u2019s relationship with Joshua Speed. The implication of his question was clear. If I was going to go there<\/em>, if I was going to plant my rainbow flag on the Great Emancipator\u2019s grave, I would have to account for my private agenda.<\/p>\n

Now that I type it out, that phrase sounds an awful lot like \u201cgay agenda\u201d and peels away to reveal the same fear at its base\u2014that our received notions about historical figures might crumble under too close an inspection. And yet, in many cases, the evidence is often hiding in plain sight. Queen Anne, as the recent movie The Favourite<\/em> underscored, wrote passionate letters to the Duchess of Marlborough. Michelangelo composed love poems for his male models. King James addressed his beloved Duke of Buckingham as \u201cmy sweet child and wife,\u201d and Shakespeare publicly directed his first 126 sonnets to a \u201cFair Youth,\u201d theorized by some scholars to be Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton.<\/p>\n

Lincoln may look like he played things closer to the vest, but even his contemporaries, pondering his youthful aversion to girls, his lack of female conquests, and his relatively late marriage, struggled to come up with face-saving explanations. Judge David Davis, a friend of Lincoln\u2019s from his circuit-riding days, insisted it was only the great man\u2019s conscience that \u201ckept him from seduction\u201d and \u201csaved many\u2014many a woman.\u201d William Herndon, Lincoln\u2019s biographer and law partner, spread rumors (almost certainly unfounded) that Lincoln had caught syphilis from a girl in Beardstown, and went so far as to resurrect a long-dead New Salem maiden named Ann Rutledge, who emerged under Herndon\u2019s burnishing as the love of Abe\u2019s life. <\/p>\n

This was news to many of Lincoln\u2019s friends and family\u2014to Mary Todd Lincoln, most of all\u2014but the Rutledge story persisted. So, too, did Joshua Speed, the handsome storekeeper who shared a small bed with Lincoln for three and a half years; who once declared that \u201cno two men were ever more intimate\u201d; who confessed that, if he himself hadn\u2019t gotten married, Lincoln wouldn\u2019t have; who promised Lincoln that he would write back the morning after his wedding night to report how it had gone; and who, for reasons unclear, never had children. Even conservative biographers had to acknowledge Speed\u2019s primacy in Lincoln\u2019s heart, and Carl Sandburg, tiptoeing as far out on the limb as a hagiographer could in the twenties, suggested that the Lincoln-Speed relationship had \u201ca streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took the late C.A. Tripp, a Kinsey Institute sex researcher, to front the question in 2005 with The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln<\/em>. The book was roundly savaged at the time and would probably have been more coherent had he lived to revise it, but its collection of raw evidence was, if not dispositive, deeply revealing. Here in one place was the full gamut of Lincoln\u2019s bedmates, from Billy Greene in New Salem (he and Lincoln, according to one neighbor, \u201chad an awful hankerin\u2019, one for t\u2019other\u201d) to, late in life, David Derickson, the bodyguard who supposedly shared Lincoln\u2019s bed while the first lady was away. Here, too, was the humorous doggerel that a twenty-year-old Lincoln wrote about two boys who, having tried \u201cthe girlies,\u201d decide to wed each other. It is, as far as we know, the first suggestion of same-sex marriage in U.S. history, and maybe we shouldn\u2019t be surprised that, having made it into the first edition of Herndon\u2019s biography, it was dropped from subsequent editions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDropped\u201d is a good way of describing how the historical establishment initially dealt with Tripp\u2019s contentions. We were told in stern tones that lots of bachelors shared beds in those days (though rarely for so long) and that Lincoln couldn\u2019t have been gay because he fathered children (so did Oscar Wilde). It\u2019s inevitable, I guess, that a unitary establishment should struggle with the binary, and in the case of the white, male, heterosexual historians who have predominantly shaped our narratives, the notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves.<\/p>\n

Maybe the strangest counterargument made to Tripp\u2019s claims was that it was pointless even to raise the subject because, in the end, Lincoln\u2019s sex life doesn\u2019t matter. And if that were true\u2014Lordy, if that were true\u2014then my book could have been written 150 years ago, and we could avoid all discussion of Lincoln\u2019s heterosexual life, right up to and including his wife and children.<\/p>\n

In recent years, a younger cohort of historians have begun actively grappling with the question of Lincoln\u2019s sexuality. That development is welcome, but as a novelist, I found myself caring less about individual sex acts than the deeper mystery of where Lincoln\u2019s heart lay. The nominal claimant would, of course, be Mary Todd, who, when she first met Lincoln, was an attractive, vivacious, and intelligent young woman, unusually well-educated for her time, with an abiding love for politics and enough prescience to guess that Lincoln, an uneducated, debt-ridden lawyer on nobody\u2019s short list to become president, would one day reward her efforts.<\/p>\n

Yet, if Lincoln was enamored of Mary, it didn\u2019t stop him from terminating their engagement or from being, over the course of their marriage, a distant husband\u2014often literally distant, traveling the Eighth Judicial Circuit for ten weeks at a time, communing with fellow lawyers in cramped inns.<\/p>\n

As with Queen Anne and King James, the best place to find Lincoln\u2019s bared heart is in letters\u2014the letters, specifically, that he wrote to Joshua Speed in 1842. Read them yourself and you will find two men who are frankly terrified by the prospect of marriage\u2014in particular, the wedding night\u2014and who are coaching and coaxing each other into normative heterosexual lifestyles. You will also find a tenderness rare in Lincoln\u2019s correspondence: \u201cI do not feel my own sorrows more keenly than I do yours \u2026 You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting\u2014that I will never cease, while I know how to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how does he close his letters? With \u201cYours forever,\u201d a salutation he bestowed on no other mortal, least of all his wife.<\/p>\n

The book I ended up writing, Courting Mr. Lincoln<\/em>, takes no definitive stand on its subject\u2019s sexuality, but neither does it shy away from the question. It lives in the land of the spoken and unspoken, which is the realm where Lincoln himself almost certainly dwelt. When all is said and done, do I need Abraham Lincoln to be gay? No. I just need him to be something more complicated than he\u2019s been allowed to be. I would argue we all need that.<\/p>\n

Louis\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/span>Bayard<\/span><\/span> is a novelist and reviewer who lives in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is<\/em> Courting Mr. Lincoln.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1743,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSo What If Lincoln Was Gay? by Louis Bayard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 16, 2019 \u2013 The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0\" \/>\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\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"So What If Lincoln Was Gay? by Louis Bayard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 16, 2019 \u2013 The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\" \/>\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=\"2019-04-16T13:00:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-16T21:08:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"857\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"476\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Louis Bayard\" \/>\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=\"Louis Bayard\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 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\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Louis Bayard\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a020c69dee0cc30191b081b1a0d0e915\"},\"headline\":\"So What If Lincoln Was Gay?\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-16T13:00:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-16T21:08:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\"},\"wordCount\":1220,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\",\"name\":\"So What If Lincoln Was Gay? by Louis Bayard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-16T13:00:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-16T21:08:24+00:00\",\"description\":\"April 16, 2019 \u2013 The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"So What If Lincoln Was Gay?\"}]},{\"@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\/a020c69dee0cc30191b081b1a0d0e915\",\"name\":\"Louis Bayard\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/29d79337e45483e53e4a486df37b58323dcb282423f956b5158bbd7f1f40dc70?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/29d79337e45483e53e4a486df37b58323dcb282423f956b5158bbd7f1f40dc70?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Louis Bayard\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/lbayard\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"So What If Lincoln Was Gay? by Louis Bayard","description":"April 16, 2019 \u2013 The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0","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\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"So What If Lincoln Was Gay? by Louis Bayard","og_description":"April 16, 2019 \u2013 The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2019-04-16T13:00:26+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-04-16T21:08:24+00:00","og_image":[{"width":857,"height":476,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Louis Bayard","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Louis Bayard","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/"},"author":{"name":"Louis Bayard","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a020c69dee0cc30191b081b1a0d0e915"},"headline":"So What If Lincoln Was Gay?","datePublished":"2019-04-16T13:00:26+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-16T21:08:24+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/"},"wordCount":1220,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg","articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/","name":"So What If Lincoln Was Gay? by Louis Bayard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg","datePublished":"2019-04-16T13:00:26+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-16T21:08:24+00:00","description":"April 16, 2019 \u2013 The notion that a man can be both a father of children and a lover of men has been as hard to accept as the idea that Thomas Jefferson could be an apostle of liberty and an impregnator of slaves. \u00a0","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/gay-lincoln.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/so-what-if-lincoln-was-gay\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"So What If Lincoln Was Gay?"}]},{"@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\/a020c69dee0cc30191b081b1a0d0e915","name":"Louis Bayard","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/29d79337e45483e53e4a486df37b58323dcb282423f956b5158bbd7f1f40dc70?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/29d79337e45483e53e4a486df37b58323dcb282423f956b5158bbd7f1f40dc70?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Louis Bayard"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/lbayard\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135568","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\/1743"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135568"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135597,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135568\/revisions\/135597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}