{"id":4130,"date":"2010-08-26T16:37:21","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T20:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=4130"},"modified":"2010-10-27T13:24:56","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T17:24:56","slug":"the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/26\/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cat is Out of the Bag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over at <em>The Atlantic<\/em> today, Lorin <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/culture\/archive\/2010\/08\/what-ernest-hemingway-toni-morrison-and-r-crumb-have-in-common\/62105\/\">shares some exciting news<\/a>: our September issue (and Lorin&#8217;s d\u00e9but) will feature interviews with Norman Rush and Michel Houellebecq. <\/p>\n<p>On Rush: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When Norman Rush explains why he didn&#8217;t publish his first book until the age of 53, that means talking about his politics, his time in prison, and the extraordinarily long and happy, argumentative marriage that has inspired so much of his astonishing fiction. Among other things, the interview is an essay about marriage. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On Houellebecq: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>. . . Houellebecq talks about having been abandoned by his parents and raised by his grandmother. He remembers his years with her as the happiest time of his life. In most contexts, this mix of opinion and personal information would rub me the wrong way. (I would rather stare at sheet rock than read a celebrity profile.) But in a <em>Paris Review<\/em> interview, because both people have given it so much thought, the connections tend to be interesting. At least, they fascinate me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And that&#8217;s not all:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For the interested, upcoming interviews will include Dave Eggers, Ann Beattie, Samuel Delaney, Louise Erdrich\u2014and, yes, Jonathan Franzen. And we&#8217;re making our archive searchable online. Soon you&#8217;ll be able to read the aforementioned Morrison, Crumb, Hemingway, Faulkner, plus Stephen King and James Baldwin and the rest of the gang. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at The Atlantic today, Lorin shares some exciting news: our September issue (and Lorin&#8217;s d\u00e9but) will feature interviews with Norman Rush and Michel Houellebecq. On Rush: When Norman Rush explains why he didn&#8217;t publish his first book until the age of 53, that means talking about his politics, his time in prison, and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Cat is Out of the Bag by Thessaly La Force<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 26, 2010 \u2013 Over at The Atlantic today, Lorin shares some exciting news: our September issue (and Lorin&#039;s d\u00e9but) will feature interviews with Norman Rush and Michel\" \/>\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\/2010\/08\/26\/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cat is Out of the Bag by Thessaly La Force\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 26, 2010 \u2013 Over at The Atlantic today, Lorin shares some exciting news: our September issue (and Lorin&#039;s d\u00e9but) will feature interviews with Norman Rush and Michel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/26\/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag\/\" \/>\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=\"2010-08-26T20:37:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2010-10-27T17:24:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thessaly La Force\" \/>\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=\"Thessaly La Force\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/26\/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/26\/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Thessaly La Force\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/fe886cd28f24e6684c57915a05ba24a2\"},\"headline\":\"The Cat is Out of the Bag\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-08-26T20:37:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-10-27T17:24:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/26\/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag\/\"},\"wordCount\":224,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Arts &amp; 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