{"id":145724,"date":"2020-06-23T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=145724"},"modified":"2020-06-23T16:59:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T20:59:32","slug":"redux-when-they-could-have-been-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/06\/23\/redux-when-they-could-have-been-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: When They Could Have Been Anything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

George Saunders. Photo: Chloe Aftel. Courtesy of George Saunders.<\/p><\/div>\n

This week, we\u2019re thinking about fatherhood and Father\u2019s Day. Read on for George Saunders\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, Jonathan Escoffery\u2019s story \u201cUnder the Ackee Tree<\/a>,\u201d and Louise Erdrich\u2019s poem \u201cBirth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0and read the entire archive? You\u2019ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. And for as long as we\u2019re flattening the curve,\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the\u00a0Daily<\/em>, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition\u00a0here<\/a>, and then\u00a0sign up for more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

George Saunders, The Art of Fiction No. 245<\/a>
\nIssue no. 231 (Winter 2019)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Do you think you\u2019d be a different writer if you hadn\u2019t had children?<\/p>\n

SAUNDERS<\/p>\n

For sure. I\u2019m not sure I would have ever published anything. Before we had our kids, I was a decent person, kind of habitually, but nothing felt morally urgent. Then the kids came, and everything suddenly mattered. The world had a moral charge. If I love these guys so much, it stands to reason that every other person in the world has somebody who loves them just as much\u2014or they should have someone who loves them as much. The world was full of consequence. That which helps what you love is good, that which hurts it is bad, and even a small hurt is significant. You see somebody come into the world, tiny and brand new and blameless, and you\u2019re like, That person deserves the best. So, by implication, everybody deserves the best.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Under the Ackee Tree<\/a>
\nBy Jonathan Escoffery
\nIssue no. 229 (Summer 2019)<\/em><\/p>\n

You name your second son Trelawny to remind yourself of home. It long enough after you reach that you miss JA bad-bad. You miss walk down a road and pick Julie mango off street side. When you try pick Miami street-side mango, lady come out she house with rifle and shoot your belly and backside with BB. In the back of your Cutler Ridge town house, you start try grow mango tree and ackee tree with any seeds you come by, but no amount of water or fertilizer will get them to sprout.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Birth<\/a>
\nBy Louise Erdrich
\nIssue no. 111 (Summer 1989)<\/em><\/p>\n

When they were wild
\nWhen they were not yet human
\nWhen they could have been anything,
\nI was on the other side ready with milk to lure them,
\nAnd their father, too, the name like a net in his hands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

And to read more from the\u00a0<\/em>Paris Review\u00a0archives, make sure to\u00a0subscribe<\/a>! In addition to four print issues per year, you\u2019ll also receive complete digital access to our sixty-seven years\u2019 worth of archives<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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