{"id":154983,"date":"2021-09-30T16:36:09","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T20:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=154983"},"modified":"2022-03-21T11:49:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T15:49:08","slug":"the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Strangers and the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

17776 (screenshot), by Jon Bois.<\/p><\/div>\n

Four years after its first chapter was published on <\/span>SB Nation <\/span><\/i>in 2017<\/span>, <\/span>Jon Bois\u2019s serialized multimedia novella<\/span> 17776: The Future of Football<\/span><\/i><\/a> is still my favorite (and some of the only) \u201cnew media\u201d lit online. Told through text interspersed with video and graphics that mix satellite imagery, newspaper clippings, and Telestrated sports-field diagrams, the story follows the sentient space probe<\/span> Pioneer 9<\/span><\/a> as it flies over the United States of the future: a land in which no one dies any more, but everyone still loves football. With their newfound immortality, Americans have developed more and more baroque constellations of rules for their favorite game, sending their players on elaborate, millennia-long scavenger hunts across the country. An epic reminiscent of <\/span>Infinite Jest<\/span><\/i>, it\u2019s a dazzlingly idiosyncratic work of art that is equal parts exercise in speculative game design, history of a dying empire, and fable about the meaning of play, humanity, and technology. But <\/span>17776<\/span><\/i> isn\u2019t just an experiment with form; Bois is a startlingly sensitive writer, and scrolling through his simple, color-coded dialogue feels like looking at the 1967<\/span> photo of Earth<\/span><\/a> taken by an astronaut on the Apollo 8 mission: lonely, but awe-inducing. <\/span>\u2014Olivia Kan-Sperling\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The world depicted in the Colombian writer Evelio Rosero\u2019s novella <\/span>Stranger to the Moon<\/span><\/i><\/a> (translated by Victor Meadowcroft and Anne McLean) is one of cruelty and excess, a series of physical struggles and acts of sexualized violence inflicted by the vicious \u201cclothed\u201d onto the \u201cunclothed\u201d they oppress. Told from the perspective of one of the unclothed, this is a hallucinatory read, brief and bizarre, and yet the murky boundaries, pathological masochism, and fascistic pull toward brutality it depicts tap into a frighteningly familiar human need to destroy\u2014one we\u2019ve seen reflected in the political realities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. <\/span>\u2014Rhian Sasseen<\/b><\/p>\n

I found a marked-up copy of <\/span>The Accidental<\/span><\/i><\/a> in a pile of books given to one of my sisters by a friend who was moving house. I knew little of Ali Smith before I started reading, but now I want to read all of her books. This one dives swiftly and deeply into several characters\u2019 consciousnesses, each filtering the awful world through a particular kind of brain: an aspiring filmmaker, a brilliant physics student, a fairly bad poet, a writer of imaginary interviews. It manages youthful points of view with both sympathy and sophistication, and zero nostalgia. There is something so special about books that drop into one\u2019s life, as opposed to those one aspires to read. Aspirational books can, and often do, disappoint. Found books hardly do that, and when they are delightful, it feels like a gift from the universe. <\/span>\u2014Jane Breakell<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

17776 (screenshot), by Jon Bois.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68386],"tags":[11615,28474,4104,14560,19776,67827],"class_list":["post-154983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-reviews-review","tag-ali-smith","tag-digital-media","tag-digital-publishing","tag-digital-reading","tag-digital-storytelling","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStrangers and the Moon by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"September 30, 2021 \u2013 The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.\" \/>\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\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strangers and the Moon by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 30, 2021 \u2013 The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\" \/>\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=\"2021-09-30T20:36:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-21T15:49:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14-1024x793.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"793\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\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=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"Strangers and the Moon\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-30T20:36:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-21T15:49:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\"},\"wordCount\":470,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14-1024x793.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Ali Smith\",\"digital media\",\"Digital publishing\",\"digital reading\",\"digital storytelling\",\"Featured\"],\"articleSection\":[\"The Review\u2019s Review\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\",\"name\":\"Strangers and the Moon by The Paris Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14-1024x793.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-30T20:36:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-21T15:49:08+00:00\",\"description\":\"September 30, 2021 \u2013 The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14.png\",\"width\":1676,\"height\":1298},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Strangers and the Moon\"}]},{\"@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\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/parisreview\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Strangers and the Moon by The Paris Review","description":"September 30, 2021 \u2013 The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.","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\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Strangers and the Moon by The Paris Review","og_description":"September 30, 2021 \u2013 The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2021-09-30T20:36:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-03-21T15:49:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":793,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14-1024x793.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"The Paris Review","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"The Paris Review","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/"},"author":{"name":"The Paris Review","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e"},"headline":"Strangers and the Moon","datePublished":"2021-09-30T20:36:09+00:00","dateModified":"2022-03-21T15:49:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/"},"wordCount":470,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14-1024x793.png","keywords":["Ali Smith","digital media","Digital publishing","digital reading","digital storytelling","Featured"],"articleSection":["The Review\u2019s Review"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/","name":"Strangers and the Moon by The Paris Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14-1024x793.png","datePublished":"2021-09-30T20:36:09+00:00","dateModified":"2022-03-21T15:49:08+00:00","description":"September 30, 2021 \u2013 The \u2018Review\u2019 reviews hallucinatory reads, from futuristic football e-literature to found books.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/screen-shot-2021-10-01-at-10.38.14.png","width":1676,"height":1298},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/30\/the-reviews-review-strangers-and-the-moon\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Strangers and the Moon"}]},{"@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\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e","name":"The Paris Review","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"The Paris Review"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/parisreview\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154983","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154983"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157827,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154983\/revisions\/157827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}