{"id":140534,"date":"2019-10-31T13:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=140534"},"modified":"2019-10-30T12:13:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T16:13:39","slug":"in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/","title":{"rendered":"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Vintage Russian postcard<\/p><\/div>\n

I am often complimented on how warm my coats look: \u201cYou look so bundled up!\u201d It is praise I accept not for myself, but on behalf of the country where I bought them: Russia. I spent a total of two winters there, in Moscow, and each time, I approached the matter of buying a coat with an almost superstitious seriousness, as if the Russian winter were a spirit that watched me as I shopped, waiting to punish me if I made the wrong choice of down, or underestimated the need for moisture-wicking fabric. I was not wrong; I swear, that first winter, the wind felt like a ghost slapping me in the face, chiding me for getting the hood that buttoned rather than zipped. Perhaps that is why, every Halloween, as ghost stories make their return, my mind often wanders to Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat.\u201d Published in 1842, it tells the story of a vengeful ghost, who in life had his overcoat stolen and now in death haunts the city of St. Petersburg, pulling coats off the backs of innocent passersby. Gogol\u2019s story, at its heart, is a frightening tale of poverty and social isolation. It is also a testament to the power of hauntings that take place on a larger scale, where ghosts seek to collect debts not for individual transgressions but for the failings of an entire society. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Overcoat\u201d follows Akaky Akakievich, an aging, awkward copy clerk who is mercilessly ridiculed by nearly everyone in his life over his lowly social status (he is a titular councilor, a relatively insignificant position in imperial Russia\u2019s \u201ctable of ranks\u201d system). At work, his superiors lord over him with a \u201ccold despotism.\u201d Despite this, he finds pleasure in his work, in its mundane simplicity: \u201cIn copying, he saw some varied and pleasant world of his own. Delight showed in his face; certain letters were his favorites, and when he came to one of them, he was beside himself.\u201d However, as winter approaches, Akaky\u2019s peace is disturbed by a familiar villain: \u201cThere exists in Petersburg a powerful enemy of all who earn a salary of four hundred rubles or thereabouts. This enemy is none other than our northern frost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akaky, whose old coat is too tattered to withstand the frigid air, begins saving for a new one, forgoing the small pleasures that make his otherwise dreary life pleasurable (drinking tea, lighting candles in the evening). But Akaky comes to find joy instead in the dream of a new coat: \u201cit was as if his very existence became somehow fuller, as if he were married, as if some other person were there with him, as if he were not alone but some pleasant life\u2019s companion had agreed to walk down the path of life with him\u2014and this companion was none other than that same overcoat.\u201d We share in his horror when, on his very first day wearing his new coat, Akaky is robbed of it. To make matters worse, as titular councilor, he does not have enough pull to get the authorities to take his case seriously. The cold air and society\u2019s indifference sends him to an early grave, but soon afterward, a rumor begins to spread throughout the city: \u201cA dead man had begun to appear at night in the form of a clerk searching for some stolen overcoat.\u201d In death, Akaky gets his revenge.<\/p>\n

Gogol\u2019s story could be classified as what Wellesley professor Kathleen Brogan defines as \u201ccultural haunting.\u201d Unlike stories of individuals being haunted by what transpired in an isolated location (haunted castles, Gothic abbeys), in cultural hauntings, societies as a whole face a reckoning. Ghosts, in these cases, are often the victims of endemic injustices who refuse to be forgotten: \u201cThrough the agency of ghosts, group histories that have in some way been threatened, erased, or fragmented are cooperated and revised.\u201d Indeed, Akaky\u2019s ghost is indiscriminate; he pulls \u201cfrom all shoulders, regardless of rank or titles, various overcoats.\u201d He is not looking to terrorize the two men who robbed him, but the city, the society, that left him out in the cold in the first place.<\/p>\n

In North America, ghost stories have also worked to counter our national historic amnesia. In Washington Irving\u2019s \u201cThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow,\u201d the headless horseman, a Revolutionary War mercenary for the British, reflects a young republic still fractured and insecure in its allegiances. Ghosts haunt us for the crime of slavery, as in Toni Morrison\u2019s Beloved<\/em>, and more recently in the Canadian poet M. NourbeSe Philip\u2019s collection Zong!. <\/em>The latter revisits the 1781 mass murder of African slaves who were tossed into the Atlantic as part of an insurance scheme. Zong!<\/em>, Philip tells us, \u201c\u201chaunt[s] the spaces of forgetting\u201d by calling on the ghostly voices of the drowned Africans to finally testify. In Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places<\/em>, Colin Dickey revisits the slave plantation, the mental asylum, and cites of haunting to disentangle the social anxieties that pervade our ghost stories, like the popular trope of \u201cIndian burial grounds\u201d in horror films such as Poltergeist II<\/em>: \u201cThe narrative of the haunted Indian burial ground hides a certain anxiety about the land on which Americans\u2014specifically white, middle-class Americans\u2014live,\u201d namely \u201cthe idea that we don\u2019t, in fact, own the land we\u2019ve just bought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghost stories are vehicles through which we can explore our anxieties over cultural appropriation, patriarchy, and militarization. In White Tears<\/em>, novelist Hari Kunzru portrays two white hipsters haunted by the spirit of the black blues musician whose work they exploit. In \u201cEspecially Heinous,\u201d a short story from the collection Her Body and Other Parties<\/em>, Carmen Maria Machado satirizes the popular TV series \u201cLaw and Order: SVU\u201d by having ghosts of women and girls whose deaths went unsolved haunt Detective Olivia Benson. In Cemetery of Splendour<\/em>, Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul depicts a military hospital for soldiers who have a strange sleeping disease. It turns out the hospital was built over the cemetery of ancient kings whose ghosts are still at war with one another. The kings feed off the energy of the soldiers, causing their narcolepsy, in a powerful allegory of the country\u2019s seeming endless cycle of violent coups.<\/p>\n

At the end of \u201cThe Overcoat,\u201d a policeman sees Akaky\u2019s ghost and follows it into the night, until the spectral thief suddenly stops, turns around, and asks him: \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d The policeman, in a terror, replies: \u201cNothing.\u201d What do<\/em> we want from our ghosts? As we commit ever-new forms of violence, such as the destruction of the environment, we will take on new hauntings. In Iceland, there was recently a funeral for a glacier. That same polar melting is pushing salt water into forests along the mid-Atlantic coast, killing trees and creating what are now known as \u201cghost forests.\u201d The same cold air that tortured Akaky might one day be nothing more than a ghost of itself, reminding society of its past crimes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jennifer Wilson is a writer and critic. Her work has appeared in the<\/em> New York Times,<\/em> The New Yorker,<\/em> The New Republic, and elsewhere.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1284,"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-140534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIn Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat by Jennifer Wilson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 31, 2019 \u2013 In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\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\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat by Jennifer Wilson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"October 31, 2019 \u2013 In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\" \/>\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=\"2019-10-31T17:00:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"487\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jennifer Wilson\" \/>\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=\"Jennifer Wilson\" \/>\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\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jennifer Wilson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/167198650f990d7f5d6c09663bf50fa1\"},\"headline\":\"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-31T17:00:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\"},\"wordCount\":1217,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\",\"name\":\"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat by Jennifer Wilson\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-31T17:00:47+00:00\",\"description\":\"October 31, 2019 \u2013 In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\u00a0\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat\"}]},{\"@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\/167198650f990d7f5d6c09663bf50fa1\",\"name\":\"Jennifer Wilson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/40c7519d27c1e128aad7c8b5b0e57a7f4875716b2b37a2675e760b0009f56788?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/40c7519d27c1e128aad7c8b5b0e57a7f4875716b2b37a2675e760b0009f56788?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jennifer Wilson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jewilson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat by Jennifer Wilson","description":"October 31, 2019 \u2013 In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\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\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat by Jennifer Wilson","og_description":"October 31, 2019 \u2013 In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\u00a0","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2019-10-31T17:00:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":800,"height":487,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jennifer Wilson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jennifer Wilson","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/"},"author":{"name":"Jennifer Wilson","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/167198650f990d7f5d6c09663bf50fa1"},"headline":"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat","datePublished":"2019-10-31T17:00:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/"},"wordCount":1217,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg","articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/","name":"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat by Jennifer Wilson","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg","datePublished":"2019-10-31T17:00:47+00:00","description":"October 31, 2019 \u2013 In Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat\u201d a ghost seeks to collect debt not for an individual transgression, but for the failings of an entire society.\u00a0","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/vintage-russian-postcards-21-1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/in-russia-the-ultimate-scary-story-is-about-losing-your-coat\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In Russia, the Ultimate Scary Story is about Losing Your Coat"}]},{"@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\/167198650f990d7f5d6c09663bf50fa1","name":"Jennifer Wilson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/40c7519d27c1e128aad7c8b5b0e57a7f4875716b2b37a2675e760b0009f56788?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/40c7519d27c1e128aad7c8b5b0e57a7f4875716b2b37a2675e760b0009f56788?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jennifer Wilson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jewilson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140534","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\/1284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140534"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140622,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140534\/revisions\/140622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}