{"id":25449,"date":"2012-01-24T13:00:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=25449"},"modified":"2012-01-24T16:01:52","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T21:01:52","slug":"mistaken-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistaken Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

William Gaddis, self-portrait.<\/p><\/div>\n

On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice<\/em> ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions<\/em><\/a>\u2014a book which had been published a good seven years before. As the ad notes, one of that novel\u2019s major themes is mistaken identity, specifically forgery \u201cof Old Masters, $20 bills, slings, personality, everything.\u201d The text continues: \u201cThe Recognitions <\/em>sold like cold cakes in hardcover because of stupid reviews by the incompetent, amateurish critics. Everyone \u2018knows\u2019 the critics are no good, but everyone believes them anyway. For an antidote, I offer my article \u2018fire the bastards!\u2019 … on sale at Village bookstores. Or mail me a quarter for it.\u201d The ad was signed, rather bafflingly, with the name and address of one \u201cjack green.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The text to which green refers, Fire the Bastards!<\/em>, an excoriation of the Recognitions<\/em>\u2019 original reviewers, came out in the pages of a paper called newspaper<\/em>, typewritten, mimeographed, and stapled on beige, legal-size paper beginning in 1957. At the beginning of February Fire the Bastards!<\/em><\/a> will be reissued in book form by Dalkey Archive Press, which first collected it (against green\u2019s express wishes) in 1992. As interesting as it <\/em>is on its own merits, as both a kind of literary performance art and as a commentary on Gaddis\u2019s work and the state of literary reviewing in general, this strange document is eclipsed by the even stranger events that followed its mysterious publication. It spurred several decades of lively literary conspiracy theories\u2014theories so rich with questions of mistaken identity that they could have emerged from Gaddis\u2019s own pen. <\/p>\n

Fire the Bastards!<\/em> contains no punctuation, capital letters, or formatting. Its analysis reads like a stream-of-consciousness screed: \u201conly 5 or 6 of 55 reviewers of the recognitions <\/em>didn\u2019t read it\u00a0\u00a0 the other 90% either got through it or theyre too smart for me [\u2026] FIRE the louiville courier-journal <\/em>hack for taking every bit of his \u2018review\u2019 from the jacket [\u2026] im biased for reviewers who favored the recognitions <\/em>except some who write like cold oatmeal\u00a0\u00a0 & this weird one who couldn\u2019t possibly have read the book\u00a0\u00a0 stars. . . and embraces. . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Green\u2019s essay <\/em>caused a stir in New York\u2019s literary community, not least by giving rise to speculation that Gaddis had either paid for it or that \u201cjack green\u201d was his pseudonym. The author certainly didn\u2019t hide his pleasure in being so staunchly defended: \u201cHere it is at last,\u201d he wrote his editor, \u201ca la revanche!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Rumors that Gaddis was the author spread to the West Coast, where one Tom Hawkins, a postal worker and beat poet living in San Francisco, became convinced of the theory. Hawkins decided to test his hypothesis by writing green an odd little letter in which he slyly queried whether green had noted the novel\u2019s \u201cVelikovskyan catastrophism.\u201d \u201cI presume that you are in contact with william gaddis,\u201d the letter continued, \u201chave you discussed this element of the recognitions<\/em> with him?\u201d Green promptly returned the missive\u2014though not before scrawling the word \u201cno\u201d in red pencil. This wasn\u2019t enough to convince Hawkins: in 1963 he self-published a book entitled Eve, The Common Muse of Henry Miller & Lawrence Durrell<\/em><\/a>, which (title notwithstanding) set forth his belief that Gaddis and green were one and the same.<\/p>\n

The antics hardly ended there. As luck would have it, this was the year that Thomas Pynchon\u2019s debut novel V.<\/em> was published. The New York Times Book Review<\/em> described its author as \u201ca recluse\u201d living in Mexico, and for the first (but certainly not the only) time, Pynchonian apocrypha grew like mushrooms: he was an extraterrestrial, J. D. Salinger, who knows. One faction advanced the idea that the so-called Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. was in fact William Gaddis, now writing under a different name after the failure of his first novel. That neither man allowed his photograph to appear on his books only fueled this hypothesis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Later on, and back in California: it\u2019s January 1984, and a series of letters signed \u201cWanda Tinasky\u201d begin to appear in the leftist Mendocino County weekly Anderson Valley Advertiser<\/em>, a paper that promised to, and did, print anything. The letters consisted of television reviews (\u201cI admire Phil Donahue for calling himself a workaholic. Phil\u2019s idea of work is sitting under a hair dryer.\u201d), assessments of celebrities, and comedically acerbic commentary on local poets, artists, and politicians delivered with wit and literary flair. Ms. Tinasky, as the academic Don Foster later wrote, \u201cdescribed herself as an elderly Jewish bag lady, a White Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 living outside the Fort Bragg limits, under a bridge\u201d who sometimes wore the AVA <\/em>as underwear. This description, it\u2019s perhaps unnecessary to say, was not widely credited, especially given that Tinasky displayed a marked interest in questions of authorship, authenticity, and disguise. One of her letters, published in August 1985, stated unequivocally that \u201cthe novels of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon were written by the same person.\u201d A year later, the rabble-rouser offered a guess as to who: it was jack green<\/em> who \u201cpublished commercially under the names of William Gaddis & Thomas Pynchon.\u201d In September 1988, Tinasky\u2019s letters abruptly stopped arriving in the AVA<\/em>\u2019s mail.<\/p>\n

Still, these pronouncements about green\u2019s identity sparked new suspicions\u2014the plot, already pretty thick, began to rapidly congeal. Who, many wondered, would concoct such a far-fetched theory about that famous \u201crecluse\u201d Pynchon other than Pynchon himself, trying to put people off the scent? In 1990, Bruce Anderson, the AVA<\/em>\u2019s publisher, printed an announcement in the paper. \u201cSUSPICIONS CONFIRMED,\u201d it read. \u201cThe justly famous American novelist, Thomas Pynchon, is almost certainly the pseudonymous comic letter writer, Wanda Tinasky.\u201d Anderson had been reading Vineland<\/a> <\/em>when lightning struck: Pynchon\u2019s novel, with its aging California hippies and general zaniness, was the spitting image of what Wanda called her own \u201cthinly veiled novel of life in romantic Mendecino.\u201d Six years later, this theory was alive and well among Pynchonians. The evidence was circumstantial: several instances of near overlap between Pynchon\u2019s novels and Wanda\u2019s letters; the fact that both used to work at Boeing; a shared fondness for funny songs and the expression \u201cto be 86\u2019ed\u201d; an obsession with the Pulitzers; and oddball comedic sensibilities. Literary critic Steven Moore begins his introduction to the collected Letters of Wanda Tinasky<\/em><\/a>: \u201cWell, if it ain\u2019t Pynchon, it\u2019s someone who has him down cold.\u201d Pynchon\u2019s wife, Melanie Jackson, wrote in response to the Letters<\/em> to say that she had consulted the author and his editors, and that no one could see a resemblance between the letters and what Moore (somewhat contradictorily) had called Pynchon\u2019s \u201cinimitable literary style.\u201d Jackson\u2019s denial made little difference, however; in the end, Pynchon felt compelled to make a rare public statement, calling CNN to deny authorship. In his opinion, it was Anderson<\/em> who was the most likely person behind the Tinasky hoax.<\/p>\n

But it was too too little and too late: as Pynchon wrote in Gravity\u2019s Rainbow<\/em>, \u201cIf they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don\u2019t have to worry about the answers.\u201d Don Foster\u2014a Shakespeare scholar who\u2019d developed a reputation as a \u201cforensic linguist\u201d and who, earlier that year, had exposed Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors<\/em>\u2014was commissioned by the Letters<\/em> editor to prove (with any luck) that Pynchon was Tinasky. The investigation took two years, but Foster finally followed the trail to a property in Medecino, where he discovered a shed containing an Underwood typewriter and a letter to jack green with the word \u201cno\u201d written on it in red pencil. Foster had found Wanda at last: she was none other than the poet Tom Hawkins, a man who, appropriately, had been known to disguise himself before going out. Foster also discovered the tragic story behind Wanda\u2019s sudden silence: in 1988, perhaps under the influence of homegrown opium, Hawkins had bludgeoned his wife Kathy to death in his truck. After mourning her for several days in their home, he set the house aflame, and, in Kathy\u2019s car, drove off a ninety-foot cliff into the sea by Bell Point. Foster published these conclusions in 2000 in his Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous<\/em>. The Wanda Tinasky Web site abruptly went blank.<\/p>\n

Foster, though, had one more mystery to solve. The ubiquitous Steven Moore, having read Foster\u2019s book, wrote in to say that he had discovered the identity of jack green: green was, in fact, a former actuary named Christopher Carlisle Reid. After reading The Recognitions<\/em> in the Spring of 1957, Reid had walked out of his office at the Metropolitan Life Insurance building in New York and thrown his tie and dress shirt into the fountain in Madison Square. Going home in his T-shirt, he tossed his razor, alarm clock, and mirror out the window and adopted the nom de plume jack green, apparently taken from Jack\u2019s Little Green Card, a popular horseracing tip sheet. Reid was the son of the novelist Helen Grace Carlisle; his stepfather worked as a textbook editor at Harcourt, Brace, which\u2014coincidentally?\u2014was Gaddis\u2019s publisher. It had actually been from Gaddis that Moore learned green\u2019s identity: Gaddis had met Reid in 1959. Reid, who made his living post-insurance as a freelance proofreader, had presented Gaddis with a list of The Recognition<\/em>\u2019s typos.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have generally shied from parading personal details,\u201d Gaddis wrote in 1968, \u201c[from] the sense \u2026 that we are never as unlike others as we can be unlike ourselves.\u201d And so, as Foster writes in Anonymous<\/em>, poor Tom Hawkins \u201cwas only two-thirds mistaken. Gaddis is Gaddis, and Pynchon is Pynchon, but jack green was not really jack green.\u201d It remains to the especially Pynchonian-minded reader to wonder whether Don Foster is really who he <\/em>claims to be.<\/p>\n

Jenny Hendrix is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good seven years before. As the ad notes, one of that novel\u2019s major themes is mistaken identity, specifically forgery \u201cof Old Masters, $20 bills, slings, personality, everything.\u201d The text continues: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[5666,5675,5679,5667,5676,2198,5665,5663,5661,1124,5678,910,5660,5677,5674,5670,5672,5669,5673,5671,4758,4386,5662,4384,5668,5664,5659],"class_list":["post-25449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-anderson-valley-advertiser","tag-author-unknown","tag-brace","tag-bruce-anderson","tag-christopher-carlisle-reid","tag-dalkey-archive-press","tag-don-foster","tag-eve","tag-fire-the-bastards","tag-gravitys-rainbow","tag-harcourt","tag-j-d-salinger","tag-jack-green","tag-jacks-little-green-card","tag-joe-klein","tag-letter-of-wanda-tinasky","tag-melanie-jackson","tag-mendocino","tag-primary-colors","tag-steven-moore","tag-the-recognitions","tag-thomas-pynchon","tag-tim-hawkins","tag-v","tag-vineland","tag-wanda-tinasky","tag-william-gaddis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMistaken Identity by Jenny Hendrix<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 24, 2012 \u2013 On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good\" \/>\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\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mistaken Identity by Jenny Hendrix\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 24, 2012 \u2013 On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\" \/>\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=\"2012-01-24T18:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-01-24T21:01:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"377\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jenny Hendrix\" \/>\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=\"Jenny Hendrix\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jenny Hendrix\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6bf106b518a78800de8d102373c462c4\"},\"headline\":\"Mistaken Identity\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-24T18:00:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-24T21:01:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\"},\"wordCount\":1647,\"commentCount\":12,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Anderson Valley Advertiser\",\"Author Unknown\",\"Brace\",\"Bruce Anderson\",\"Christopher Carlisle Reid\",\"Dalkey Archive Press\",\"Don Foster\",\"Eve\",\"Fire the Bastards!\",\"Gravity's Rainbow\",\"Harcourt\",\"J. D. Salinger\",\"jack green\",\"Jack's Little Green Card\",\"Joe Klein\",\"Letter of Wanda Tinasky\",\"Melanie Jackson\",\"Mendocino\",\"Primary Colors\",\"Steven Moore\",\"The Recognitions\",\"Thomas Pynchon\",\"Tim Hawkins\",\"V.\",\"Vineland\",\"Wanda Tinasky\",\"William Gaddis\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Books\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\",\"name\":\"Mistaken Identity by Jenny Hendrix\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-24T18:00:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-24T21:01:52+00:00\",\"description\":\"January 24, 2012 \u2013 On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mistaken Identity\"}]},{\"@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\/6bf106b518a78800de8d102373c462c4\",\"name\":\"Jenny Hendrix\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c18122061a8afabad3b10e44db686f74ad5ec0b4922d4aea4e7bd514734dae3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c18122061a8afabad3b10e44db686f74ad5ec0b4922d4aea4e7bd514734dae3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jenny Hendrix\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jenny-hendrix\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mistaken Identity by Jenny Hendrix","description":"January 24, 2012 \u2013 On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good","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\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mistaken Identity by Jenny Hendrix","og_description":"January 24, 2012 \u2013 On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2012-01-24T18:00:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-01-24T21:01:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":300,"height":377,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jenny Hendrix","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jenny Hendrix","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/"},"author":{"name":"Jenny Hendrix","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6bf106b518a78800de8d102373c462c4"},"headline":"Mistaken Identity","datePublished":"2012-01-24T18:00:48+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-24T21:01:52+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/"},"wordCount":1647,"commentCount":12,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg","keywords":["Anderson Valley Advertiser","Author Unknown","Brace","Bruce Anderson","Christopher Carlisle Reid","Dalkey Archive Press","Don Foster","Eve","Fire the Bastards!","Gravity's Rainbow","Harcourt","J. D. Salinger","jack green","Jack's Little Green Card","Joe Klein","Letter of Wanda Tinasky","Melanie Jackson","Mendocino","Primary Colors","Steven Moore","The Recognitions","Thomas Pynchon","Tim Hawkins","V.","Vineland","Wanda Tinasky","William Gaddis"],"articleSection":["Books"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/","name":"Mistaken Identity by Jenny Hendrix","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg","datePublished":"2012-01-24T18:00:48+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-24T21:01:52+00:00","description":"January 24, 2012 \u2013 On March 29, 1962, the Village Voice ran a full-page ad touting the merits of William Gaddis\u2019s The Recognitions\u2014a book which had been published a good","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/gaddis1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/24\/mistaken-identity\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mistaken Identity"}]},{"@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\/6bf106b518a78800de8d102373c462c4","name":"Jenny Hendrix","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c18122061a8afabad3b10e44db686f74ad5ec0b4922d4aea4e7bd514734dae3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c18122061a8afabad3b10e44db686f74ad5ec0b4922d4aea4e7bd514734dae3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jenny Hendrix"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jenny-hendrix\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449","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\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25449"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25877,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449\/revisions\/25877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}