{"id":141730,"date":"2019-12-20T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141730"},"modified":"2019-12-20T15:57:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T20:57:37","slug":"a-bridegroom-called-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bridegroom Called Death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Crystal Lucas-Perry and Jonathan Hadary in A Bright Room Called Day <\/em>(2019). Photo: Joan Marcus.<\/p><\/div>\n

Upon hearing I was seeing the new production of Tony Kushner\u2019s A Bright Room Called Day<\/em><\/a>, a friend asked if I thought the playwright would be in attendance. I pictured him back in the sound booth scribbling notes, some kind of light playing on those perfectly round glasses. I pictured him there, not basking\u2014for Christ\u2019s sake, he\u2019s a writer\u2014but questioning. Kushner, after all, is an indefatigable rewriter, and the temptation of tinkering with a major revival at the Public Theater could have proved impossible to resist. Kushner wasn\u2019t in the wings that night, though. He did his rewrite from the stage.<\/p>\n

In this divisive revision of his first play, Kushner has inserted a version of himself, played by the actor Jonathan Hadary. Written in 1985 when Kushner was twenty-six, A Bright Room Called Day<\/em> is, according to the program materials, what first caught the eye of Kushner\u2019s artistic director and longtime collaborator Oskar Eustis. It\u2019s clear why: the play is near catastrophic in its precocity. But it is also a young man\u2019s play. It is didactic and referential, polemical and pedantic; the reviews over the years have said as much.<\/p>\n

A Bright Room Called Day<\/em> presents a group of liberal, bohemian, and decidedly human friends in Berlin in 1932, just as the noose is beginning to tighten. They are Marxists and Trotskyites, some more than others. There is plenty of ideological ping-pong, which is great if you love Marxist ideology or ping-pong. But, as though it wasn\u2019t Brechtian enough, the action is interrupted by a character named Zillah, who makes clear the connection between the Reagan era and the twilight years of the Weimar Republic: the heartbreaking swing of the working class from the Left to the Right. Zillah serves as a metafictional commentator who engages Kushner\u2019s fascination with verfremdungseffekt<\/em>, the Brechtian antitheater craft of undoing the \u201cmagic\u201d of the stage. <\/p>\n

It is patently obvious how the play could fall short of dramatic success, but I can\u2019t testify to it personally\u2014that initial version isn\u2019t what I saw. Instead of Zillah disrupting the action occasionally during the two-hour-plus demonstration on the dangers of telling rather than showing, the \u201cauthor\u201d steps on stage and debates the value of the interruption with his interrupter. \u201cThere\u2019s all of a sudden an interest in the play,\u201d Kushner\u2019s avatar says to Zillah. \u201cI have offers! After years of college productions but no professional theater would touch the goddamned thing because, as you\u2019ve already mentioned, it doesn\u2019t \u2026 entirely work. Then BAM<\/small>! After the election, things are so bad people want to do this play! Like, like [doing\/fixing] the play is going to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember the actor as saying \u201cdoing\u201d in the play, but the script says \u201cfixing.\u201d Either line has its interest, and I wonder if the wording itself was fixed in a later stage. Kushner speaks to Shakespeare through the ages, responding to Hamlet\u2019s \u201cThe play\u2019s the thing\u201d with a sharp \u201cIs it?\u201d Is it? How could adding another level of metafiction to a metafictional play possibly improve it? Plenty of critics and theatergoers have said that it doesn\u2019t, and yet when the play ended, I stood. I couldn\u2019t bring my hands together fast enough. I was crying. I was moved. I had met Tony Kushner, and I had seen him work.<\/p>\n

Kushner\u2019s rewrite brings the audience not just into the play but into the castling chaos of the creative mind. The \u201cauthor,\u201d in one of his appearances, shares that the play\u2019s title is actually a mondegreen, a misheard song lyric or phrase. Struggling with the play, the real Kushner went to an exhibition about the de Mille sisters and in a stumble of optimism heard A Bridegroom Called Death<\/em>, an Agnes de Mille ballet, as A Bright Room Called Day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A wise and worldly woman complained to me once about the fund-raising apparatus of\u2014for instance\u2014the New York City Ballet. She was making a case against the goodie-bag hierarchy of donor tiers: \u201cI don\u2019t want to watch a rehearsal,\u201d she said, with her richly matter-of-fact logic. \u201cI donate so that they can put on, fabulously, the most magical performance, and I want to watch that.\u201d This made good sense to me. But internally, I disagreed. I do want to watch the rehearsal. To see dancers in their warm-ups, moving with otherworldly beauty and then stopping to sip from something as pedestrian as a water bottle, is thrilling. To watch them do it almost right, again and again, till they do it perfectly is ecstasy (my apologies to Brecht). And it is the imperfection of Kushner\u2019s revival, the lifting not of the fourth wall but of the rear curtain that hides the backstage, that makes me love it so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe essential thing in theater is what happens onstage very obviously both is <\/em>and isn\u2019t<\/em> at the same time,\u201d Kushner says in his Paris Review <\/em>interview<\/a>. \u201cThe play demands that the audience extend its empathic imagination.\u201d There is no play of Kushner\u2019s that doesn\u2019t return to this difficulty again and again. But in recent years, Kushner has also written screenplays\u2014two for Stephen Spielberg. The novelist and playwright Larry Kramer has complained that he wishes Kushner would cut this out: \u201cI think Tony is better at writing plays than Spielberg is at making movies.\u201d This critique seems to ring through Kushner\u2019s rewrite.<\/p>\n

Zillah draws a line from theater and acting to Reagan as \u201cbad actor\u201d in all senses and to Trump, who is also a bad actor. I\u2019ve lost my taste for magic, the \u201cauthor\u201d complains. He feels culpable, that the magic has worked too completely. The delicate balance between the suspension of disbelief and the passionate commitment to belief have gotten tangled, Kushner seems to be saying. Look for the strings. Follow the money. In his interview, I have always loved his plea for the magic of the theater: \u201cThe theater requires an essential gullibility you can\u2019t get through life without having.\u201d But now, at the ragged end of 2019, Kushner is arguing with his earlier self. Maybe the gullibility is wrong. Maybe it brought us Pizzagate and hurricane arrows and the orange beast himself.<\/p>\n

But the original play is also a struggle not to assign blame. Among the most shattering moments from the original script is a scene in which a gay man, newly persecuted for being part of a sexual studies institute, finds himself in a provincial theater with a gun in his pocket and Adolf Hitler a seat or two ahead of him. \u201cI might have killed him, yes, but they would certainly have killed me. And I don\u2019t want to die,\u201d he says. Everyday cowardice, everyday self-preservation along with bigotry and passionate hatred made the Holocaust possible, is Kushner\u2019s point\u2014and it is a plea for compassion as much as a self-indictment of today\u2019s American Left. \u201cWhat weapons can we take up?\u201d the author literally and figuratively asks the audience, having seen history and its failures, having seen art and its failures.<\/p>\n

In the interest of the magic of the theater, I want to withhold Kushner\u2019s answer. But the thesis is both obvious and profound. Kushner asks us to look at the danger of art and artifice in 2019 and to continue to have imagination. Old women climb on the stage without warning, the devil comes in a cloud of smoke and wears a Cartier Tank watch and a wedding band (a nice touch), and the dead can speak\u2014if we\u2019re still willing to listen. At the foot of a new decade, with impeachment hearings raging in the houses of government, skepticism is a tempting mantle. But there are wise men among us and\u2014bless some parts of this decade\u2014wise women and nonbinary folk as well. I\u2019m here to argue that Tony Kushner is one of them. Some of his work is improvable, but his ideology still stands: \u201cIf all you can feel is skepticism\u2014well, you meet people like this. Run away from them. They\u2019re not good people.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Julia Berick is a writer who lives in New York. She works at\u00a0<\/i>The Paris Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1235,"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-141730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Bridegroom Called Death by Julia Berick<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.\" \/>\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\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Bridegroom Called Death by Julia Berick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 20, 2019 \u2013 With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\" \/>\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=\"2019-12-20T16:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-12-20T20:57:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"709\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Julia Berick\" \/>\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=\"Julia Berick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 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\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Julia Berick\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6f40c2a2600f248205d5d94369927d5a\"},\"headline\":\"A Bridegroom Called Death\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-20T16:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-12-20T20:57:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\"},\"wordCount\":1408,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\",\"name\":\"A Bridegroom Called Death by Julia Berick\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-20T16:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-12-20T20:57:37+00:00\",\"description\":\"With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Bridegroom Called Death\"}]},{\"@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\/6f40c2a2600f248205d5d94369927d5a\",\"name\":\"Julia Berick\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/346803a3e975ce31eaa68d169107cd314eceb9383bc055949dc423784f4226c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/346803a3e975ce31eaa68d169107cd314eceb9383bc055949dc423784f4226c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Julia Berick\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jberick\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Bridegroom Called Death by Julia Berick","description":"With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.","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\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Bridegroom Called Death by Julia Berick","og_description":"December 20, 2019 \u2013 With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2019-12-20T16:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-12-20T20:57:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":709,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Julia Berick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Julia Berick","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/"},"author":{"name":"Julia Berick","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6f40c2a2600f248205d5d94369927d5a"},"headline":"A Bridegroom Called Death","datePublished":"2019-12-20T16:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-20T20:57:37+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/"},"wordCount":1408,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg","articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/","name":"A Bridegroom Called Death by Julia Berick","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg","datePublished":"2019-12-20T16:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-20T20:57:37+00:00","description":"With his revival of \u2018A Bright Room Called Day,\u2019 Tony Kushner asks us to look at the dangers of 2019 and yet continue to have imagination.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/brightroom.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/a-bridegroom-called-death\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Bridegroom Called Death"}]},{"@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\/6f40c2a2600f248205d5d94369927d5a","name":"Julia Berick","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/346803a3e975ce31eaa68d169107cd314eceb9383bc055949dc423784f4226c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/346803a3e975ce31eaa68d169107cd314eceb9383bc055949dc423784f4226c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Julia Berick"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jberick\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141730","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\/1235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141730"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141814,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141730\/revisions\/141814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}