{"id":70349,"date":"2014-04-25T15:12:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T19:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=70349"},"modified":"2014-04-25T16:34:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T20:34:39","slug":"a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/","title":{"rendered":"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><script>\/* <![CDATA[ *\/ portfolio_slideshow.slideshows[881] = {\"timeout\":\"4000\",\"autoplay\":\"false\",\"trans\":\"fade\",\"loop\":\"true\",\"speed\":\"400\",\"nowrap\":\"true\"}; \/* ]]> *\/<\/script><div id=\"slideshow-wrapper881\" class=\"slideshow-wrapper clearfix portfolio-slideshow-centered\">\n<div id=\"slideshow-nav881\" class=\"slideshow-nav\">\n\t<a class=\"pause\" style=\"display:none\" href=\"javascript:void(0);\">Pause<\/a>\n\t<a class=\"play\" href=\"javascript:void(0);\">Play<\/a>\n\t<a class=\"restart\" style=\"display:none\" href=\"javascript: void(0);\">Play<\/a>\n\t<a class=\"slideshow-prev\" href=\"javascript: void(0);\">Prev<\/a>\n\t<span class=\"sep\">|<\/span>\n\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript: void(0);\">Next<\/a>\n\t<span class=\"slideshow-info881 slideshow-info\"><\/span>\n<\/div><!-- .slideshow-nav -->\n<div id=\"portfolio-slideshow881\" class=\"portfolio-slideshow\" style=\"\">\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content \">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mwsw7gWypa1rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mwsw7gWypa1rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 1\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mwli1kZU1e1rw88j4o1_r1_1280.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 2\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mwsw5ruoiK1rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 3\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mwwu0938jI1rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 4\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mx4b6wKUKI1rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 5\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mx4bebZHz81rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 6\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-next slideshow-content not-first\">\n\t\t<a class=\"slideshow-next\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"psp-active\" data-img=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_mx9s0sSsUf1rw88j4o1_1280.jpg\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" height=\"450\" width=\"600\" alt=\"Slide 7\"><\/a>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"slideshow-meta\">\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slideshow-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slideshow-description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n<\/div><\/div><!--#slideshow-wrapper--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Brad Zellar\u2019s writing has appeared in daily newspapers from Minnesota and in an expansive blog called <a href=\"http:\/\/yourmanforfuninrapidan.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Your Man for Fun in Rapidan<\/a>; he has chapters and essays in collections like <\/em>The 1968 Project<em> and <\/em>Twin Cities Noir<em>, and occasionally he writes fiction, which he tells me he publishes \u201cunder an assortment of fake names.\u201d But he\u2019s most comfortable writing about photographs, as he did in the book <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/shop.mnhs.org\/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=1688\" target=\"_blank\">Suburban World: The Norling Photos<\/a><em>, and in his most recent project with the photographer <a href=\"http:\/\/alecsoth.com\/photography\/\" target=\"_blank\">Alec Soth<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/lbmdispatch.tumblr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">LBM Dispatch<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Named for and printed by Soth\u2019s limited-run publishing house, Little Brown Mushroom, the Dispatch reimagines the iconic American road-trip photography book as a series of small newspapers, each of which chronicles a quick trip Zellar and Soth have taken through a different state or territory. Previous Dispatches have covered Michigan, Ohio, and California\u2019s \u201cThree Valleys\u2014Silicon, San Joaquin, and Death.\u201d The most recent includes images and stories from the Texas Triangle. <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>I wanted to know about the writing process for the Dispatch, and how Zellar chooses the issues\u2019 many quotations from historical and literary sources. But I was most curious to hear his thoughts on writing to accompany images. Not quite a photo-interpreter in the Berger\/Sontag tradition (though he is a great writer <a href=\"http:\/\/yourmanforfuninrapidan.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/my-photographic-education.html\" target=\"_blank\">in the \u201chow to look\u201d sense<\/a>), Zellar embraces photography as a fan, and he\u2019s not afraid to let images do the talking when necessary. In Zellar\u2019s work, photos are windows, excuses for curiosity\u2014above all, the Dispatch embodies the devotion to stay curious.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>A lot of your work, here and elsewhere, has accompanied photos. How does it affect your own writing to know that pictures will share its space? How does it make you think about your purpose as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The public library in my hometown had a terrific collection of photo books when I was a kid. I was an obsessive reader, but it was from those photo books that I formed my first real impressions about what the world looked like. And they played a huge role in cementing a resolve that I very much wanted to travel and see that world. I used to spend hours hunched over William Eggleston\u2019s <em>Guide<\/em>, the first Diane Arbus monograph, and a book of vernacular American photographs called <em>The Champion Pig<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">From an early age I used to write stories based on photographs, and I\u2019ve never really stopped. I have a large collection of found photos, I like to take photos myself, and I just get a kick out of looking at pictures and trying to animate them with words. I love that photos represent so many possible realities, and they\u2019re sort of a laboratory for exploring points of view. You have the people in the pictures, obviously, each of them a different voice with a different version of whatever story is being told, you have the people outside the frame or lurking in the peripheries, and then, of course, you have the photographer. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I look at photos and hear voices. I imagine all the other pictures and moments from the same roll of film. I make forensic inventories of every piece of information I can glean from a photograph, and a list of questions the photo poses for me. Working with a photographer is such a marvelous crutch for a writer. There\u2019s so much I don\u2019t have to write down, because I know I\u2019m going to have Alec\u2019s evidence to work with.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>You\u2019ve said that the Dispatch is very much about quickness\u2014the trips are short and fast, the work comes almost immediately. But a lot of your writing is curatorial, the quotes and excerpts and so on.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The planning and preparation generally takes more time than the actual trips. I usually leave town with a notebook full of quotes, facts, and figures, very little of which ever ends up getting used. The whole focus of a trip can turn in an instant when we\u2019re working, and we\u2019re both very much aware of that by now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A big part of what allows us to move quickly once we\u2019re on the road is the amount of research, planning, and preparation we do before we get in the van. Once we\u2019ve targeted a state or region we\u2019ll usually start brainstorming about things we know about the place\u2014quick, off-the-top-of-the-head stuff. The history, literature, music, and art that\u2019s been produced there. I\u2019ll assemble a mixtape and a small library of relevant books. I like histories, but my initial interest is always fiction and poetry. We\u2019ll also look at other artists who might have worked in the area. From there we\u2019ll dig into current events, local news, demographics, and events calendars, essentially trying to put together a list of possible themes as well as an initial itinerary. We both like to have a decent idea where we\u2019re headed every day, and some notion of what we\u2019re interested in there. Serendipity always plays a huge role in the trips, obviously, but generally that\u2019s the result of following our original trail and turning up something of interest along the way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">There are always those moments when, for lack of a better word, the arc of the whole trip swims into focus, and that usually leads us to start looking more intently for stuff that may not have been on our original radar. It\u2019s usually a thematic Eureka\u2014in \u201cUpstate\u201d [Dispatch #2], for instance, we started feeling like the whole swing of the thing was taking us back into time, history, and the wilderness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Do you talk at all about your goals, as far as depiction goes? What\u2019s the larger motive as far as what ends up in the Dispatch and what doesn\u2019t?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Alec and I started with the idea that we would just find a way to work around home, and for a period of several months, purely for fun, we were exploring the exurban fringes of the Twin Cities, pretending to be newspapermen. In the course of these rambles we ended up in places that, though they were no more than forty minutes from my doorstep, might well have been foreign countries. Little townships, small town service clubs and fraternal organizations, church dances, crime scenes, small business expos, stuff like that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In a place called Linwood Township\u2014maybe thirty miles from Minneapolis\u2014we visited the town hall, which was located in a tin, prefab building. Every single expenditure for the township had to be voted on by a show of hands from every taxpayer who showed up for the meeting. In an adjacent room there was a senior citizen center. The whole thing felt like something you\u2019d stumble across in the Yukon. The township had recently planned a big centennial celebration. It was going to run over several days, and they sent out press releases, only to discover later, through a call from the county historical society, that they were off on the date by something like forty-nine years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We weren\u2019t looking for provincialism. We went into the project expecting to discover the milfoil of corporate America\u2014the same sort of bland development you\u2019d encounter in the suburbs and city just to the north. But we\u2019ve discovered exactly the opposite. You get off the freeways and into the heart of the heart of the country and time and again you find that all these quaint notions about American cultural life and values are still out there. They\u2019re sometimes under siege, obviously\u2014there\u2019s economic hardship and meth and immigration and other stuff like that. But there are also all these places where you\u2019ll find well-preserved and thriving Main Streets and a boisterous local culture and social life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In the states we visit, we\u2019re always trying to get away from regional stereotypes\u2014the cowboys, et cetera. But it turns out there\u2019s no escaping them. There have been times when we\u2019ve been trying all day, or even for days at a time, to find a doomsayer or a true crackpot, and we just keep running into these tough, resilient, incredibly open people. It\u2019s corny as hell sometimes, but it\u2019s also sort of inspiring. It\u2019s probably fair to say that we\u2019re both pretty cynical and naturally solitary characters, and neither of us shies away from uncomfortable encounters, but on so many occasions when we\u2019ve steeled ourselves to walk into a situation that from the outside looks like nothing but trouble, we\u2019ve been welcomed with open arms. The only exception to this has come in attempting to penetrate the bastions of the really wealthy. They just won\u2019t let you in, and things can get nasty in a hurry.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>What do you mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We\u2019ve tried everything, almost literally. We\u2019ve worked contacts with art collectors and people on the boards of museums, made countless calls, cold-called at exclusive clubs and country clubs, tried corporate offices, submitted formal requests. It\u2019s crazy. I guess they\u2019re just very wary of how they might be portrayed\u2014perhaps for good reason\u2014and they\u2019re accustomed to being in complete control. It\u2019s shrewd, really, if frustrating. The resistance has been firm, dismissive, and often hostile.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>To your point about the persistence of regionalism, I think we often forget\u2014to use one totally unverified but pretty cool statistic I once heard\u2014that if the entire American population were packed as densely as Brooklyn, we could all fit in New Hampshire. Most American communities are rural, and even those that are close to cities, like the ones you found in Minnesota, still have this incredible resistance to true change.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A sense of place is huge for me, whether I\u2019m reading or looking at photos. I like to have some idea of where I am. Perhaps not surprisingly, the places in this country that have the strongest and most rooted regional identities\u2014the Deep South and the West\u2014tend to have the deepest literary traditions. You can\u2019t visit Mississippi without thinking of Faulkner, Eudora Welty, or Barry Hannah, and they did such an incredible job of describing the place that even on my first trip down there it all felt very familiar to me. In the Midwest you tend to have the classic portraits of suffocating conformity\u2014Sinclair Lewis\u2019s <em>Main Street<\/em>\u00a0or Sherwood Anderson\u2019s <em>Winesburg, Ohio<\/em>, just for instance\u2014and growing up in that world I\u2019m not as drawn to such places, or such books. The West\u2014and particularly Montana\u2014has produced scads of great literature and art, and that\u2019s a place that has always attracted me for that reason\u2014partly for the larger-than-life romance of it, but also because it all still resonates and feels relevant to the current state of things. The Northeast is full of moldering history, too. And the ghosts of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne seem to be everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brad Zellar\u2019s writing has appeared in daily newspapers from Minnesota and in an expansive blog called Your Man for Fun in Rapidan; he has chapters and essays in collections like The 1968 Project and Twin Cities Noir, and occasionally he writes fiction, which he tells me he publishes \u201cunder an assortment of fake names.\u201d But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[10760,1132,13687,100,7471,13688,13686,123,12493,13685],"class_list":["post-70349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-alec-soth","tag-interviews","tag-photo-essays","tag-photography","tag-road-trips","tag-the-lbm-dispatch","tag-the-united-states","tag-travel","tag-travelogues","tag-writing-about-photography"],"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>A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Lingan interviews the writer on the Dispatch, how he chooses quotations from historical sources, and his thoughts on writing text to accompany images.\" \/>\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\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar by John Lingan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 25, 2014 \u2013 Brad Zellar\u2019s writing has appeared in daily newspapers from Minnesota and in an expansive blog called Your Man for Fun in Rapidan; he has chapters and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\" \/>\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=\"2014-04-25T19:12:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-04-25T20:34:39+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=\"John Lingan\" \/>\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=\"John Lingan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"John Lingan\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/039c91566572aabb83b3f807f434106f\"},\"headline\":\"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-04-25T19:12:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-04-25T20:34:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\"},\"wordCount\":1856,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Alec Soth\",\"interviews\",\"photo essays\",\"photography\",\"road trips\",\"the LBM Dispatch\",\"the United States\",\"travel\",\"Travelogues\",\"writing about photography\"],\"articleSection\":[\"At Work\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\",\"name\":\"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-04-25T19:12:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-04-25T20:34:39+00:00\",\"description\":\"John Lingan interviews the writer on the Dispatch, how he chooses quotations from historical sources, and his thoughts on writing text to accompany images.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar\"}]},{\"@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\/039c91566572aabb83b3f807f434106f\",\"name\":\"John Lingan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e82e665ffb56f3b8dacd49ea4d80ffb973b3a0418a92b28df72c45bfca3776f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e82e665ffb56f3b8dacd49ea4d80ffb973b3a0418a92b28df72c45bfca3776f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Lingan\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jlingan\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar","description":"John Lingan interviews the writer on the Dispatch, how he chooses quotations from historical sources, and his thoughts on writing text to accompany images.","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\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar by John Lingan","og_description":"April 25, 2014 \u2013 Brad Zellar\u2019s writing has appeared in daily newspapers from Minnesota and in an expansive blog called Your Man for Fun in Rapidan; he has chapters and","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-04-25T19:12:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-04-25T20:34:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"John Lingan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"John Lingan","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/"},"author":{"name":"John Lingan","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/039c91566572aabb83b3f807f434106f"},"headline":"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar","datePublished":"2014-04-25T19:12:04+00:00","dateModified":"2014-04-25T20:34:39+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/"},"wordCount":1856,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["Alec Soth","interviews","photo essays","photography","road trips","the LBM Dispatch","the United States","travel","Travelogues","writing about photography"],"articleSection":["At Work"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/","name":"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-04-25T19:12:04+00:00","dateModified":"2014-04-25T20:34:39+00:00","description":"John Lingan interviews the writer on the Dispatch, how he chooses quotations from historical sources, and his thoughts on writing text to accompany images.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/25\/a-marvelous-crutch-an-interview-with-brad-zellar\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Marvelous Crutch: An Interview with Brad Zellar"}]},{"@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\/039c91566572aabb83b3f807f434106f","name":"John Lingan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e82e665ffb56f3b8dacd49ea4d80ffb973b3a0418a92b28df72c45bfca3776f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e82e665ffb56f3b8dacd49ea4d80ffb973b3a0418a92b28df72c45bfca3776f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"John Lingan"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jlingan\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70349","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\/435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70349"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70370,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70349\/revisions\/70370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}