{"id":95025,"date":"2016-03-01T14:00:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T19:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=95025"},"modified":"2016-03-01T12:35:30","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T17:35:30","slug":"not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JMD.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Collections of stories often lose steam as they go, because even stories that are great individually can sound too alike when read together. But Jeremy M. Davies\u2019s <\/em>The Knack of Doing<\/a> steers far clear of this problem\u2014almost aggressively so. His stories vary so wildly\u2014stylistically, topically, even conceptually\u2014that I can\u2019t imagine where half his ideas come from: a series of letters from a father to his children, doled out to them by his ex-wife as she absconds with them on a trans-Atlantic cruise in the 1920s; a cartoonish, otherworldly smash-up of Robert Burns and Flann O\u2019Brien; a tale of hypnotism and metafiction in eighteenth-century France. Davies is a writer of great precision, intelligence, humor, and depth, but if there is a guiding spirit in his work, it\u2019s invention, literature\u2019s endless potential for reimagining its forms of expression.<\/em><\/p>\n

Davies is also the author of two novels\u2014<\/em>Rose Alley<\/a> (2009) and <\/em>Fancy<\/a> (2015)\u2014and was for many years senior editor at Dalkey Archive Press. We corresponded over e-mail in January of this year.<\/em><\/p>\n

Harry Mathews wrote of your first book, Rose Alley<\/em>, that it \u201cambushes the reader, not with brutality but with wit, irresistible ingenuity, and a stupefying narrative abundance.\u201d It seems to me these are precisely the qualities you share with Mathews\u2014wit, ingenuity, abundance\u2014all of which are variations on playfulness. What is the role of play in your writing? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Play is of supreme importance to me. Everything I write begins with a sense of play and hopes to engage the reader\u2019s playfulness in turn. Not that I\u2019m always giggling to myself as I work, but I do think writing that doesn\u2019t have a sense of play is going to wind up pretty dead on the page, no matter its subject.<\/p>\n

My own rule of thumb is, If I\u2019m not having fun, stop. If I can\u2019t picture someone else having fun reading what I\u2019m writing, stop. Bearing in mind that \u201cfun\u201d can mean many things. Primo Levi writing about life in a condition of absolute terror and deprivation probably wasn\u2019t having fun, as such, but he was engaged\u2014he\u2019d have to be. He wasn\u2019t plodding across the page. He wasn\u2019t being dutiful. The same goes for Ivy Compton-Burnett writing about trivial differences of opinion among the wealthy. The same goes for Robert Sheckley writing about interdimensional travel. The same certainly goes for Harry Mathews and the writers he led me to, like Jane Bowles or Laura (Riding) Jackson. I think the same goes for just about every writer worth reading. They give you permission to play. <\/p>\n

Also like Mathews, you are a fan of constraint-based writing, including but not limited to the Oulipo. The use of formal constraints is obvious in your novels, but in the stories, the constraints\u2014if there are any\u2014are less evident. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Honestly, I can no longer distinguish between my affection for constraint-based writing and my affection for good writing period. Whether I\u2019ve just gotten myopic over the years or whether this is late-onset maturity, I don\u2019t know, but my feeling nowadays is that the presence or absence of constraints in the Oulipian sense is largely irrelevant, save anecdotally. This is not to diminish the work done by the Oulipo or their followers, nor the impact the group has had on my reading and writing life, but it seems to me that the crucial lesson taught by their methodologies is the basic one, the one that all writers need to learn and relearn daily, and so bears repeating, even as everyone rolls their eyes at the reminder\u2014that without a strong sense of form as an imposed, extrinsic part of your work, without a strong sense of your writing as being, necessarily, artifice, your sentences will inevitably fall back upon and so reproduce the same sort of undigested garbage language we all have in our heads. In the end, it doesn\u2019t matter much to me how one goes about escaping that trap, so long as one does escape.<\/p>\n

As far as Oulipian constraints, in particular, I think they can be a great way to learn, because they\u2019re unsentimental and entertaining, and I do tend to be delighted by them, in the abstract, whatever their results. But past a certain point, they run the risk of becoming publicity tools rather than writing tools. Art is a moving target, and I don\u2019t think any one method works indefinitely, even an ingenious or delightful one.<\/p>\n

So, the answer here is, I guess, that I don\u2019t draw a hard and fast line between my more obviously constraint-based fictions\u2014some of which, by the way, are counterfeit, with the only constraint at work being that I wanted them to sound as though they were constrained\u2014and the rest. There are certainly plenty of stories in Knack<\/em> where I had no real constraints in mind, or not in the \u201cclassical,\u201d arbitrary sense, but naturally these still had rules<\/em> in place\u2014goals, a certain sound I was going for, a style being parodied, solutions or tools I wasn\u2019t allowing myself. All of which provided the vocabularies and boundaries that the story came to employ and occupy.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a surprising amount of metafiction in these stories\u2014surprising because the strategies of metafiction are not exactly hailed as cutting edge these days. It seems to me these strategies had greater breadth of possibility than they\u2019re typically given credit for, but they were also always in response to a particular set of narrative and cultural problems. What is your own particular interest in metafiction? Do you use metafiction in a way that\u2019s different from the stuff you grew up on?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this one, but I\u2019m of the opinion that all narrative art has got to be concerned with the question of representation. That is, whatever else a given story might be about\u2014broken hearts, time-traveling Nazis, time-traveling Nazis with broken hearts\u2014it\u2019s also always going to be about the struggle to be about<\/em> those things in whatever ways are particular to the medium. That\u2019s one of the central dramas at work, whether or not we talk about it, whether or not the author calls attention to it. Not just what happens in a story but how it happens, how it\u2019s presented, how it tries to trick us into taking it seriously, since goodness knows we\u2019ve seen all the what\u2014and even most of the how\u2014so many times before.<\/p>\n

In my case, especially with short fiction, I just don\u2019t see any percentage in trying to efface that tension if there might be something to be gained, aesthetically\u2014even just comedically\u2014from drawing attention to it. I personally find it to be more, not less interesting when authors speak plainly about the tricks and challenges of writing. There\u2019s this old truism that that sort of work lacks heart, warmth, that it\u2019s writing for writers, self-indulgent, silly, and so forth, but I find that argument unconvincing, even transparently false. There\u2019s no more basic, human issue than that of making oneself understood, of using language to stake out a version of reality. Gilbert Sorrentino for certain proved, at least to me, that you can play it straight with your reader about how you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing and still be affecting, poignant, et cetera.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t mean to sound polemical about it, because if there\u2019s a big difference between my use of metafiction and the sixties\/seventies version, it\u2019s that I have less than nothing to prove on this score. You\u2019re right that the self-conscious stuff is what I grew up on and love, but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a thing wrong with realism, with camouflaging artifice rather than foregrounding it, so long as you can pull it off. I mean, that\u2019s the real question\u2014can you get away with it? If you can, by all means do. If you can\u2019t, well, find another way. There\u2019s no hierarchy or morality involved, for me. There\u2019s no battle there worth fighting, save, I suppose, with all the people who still think there\u2019s a battle there worth fighting\u2014for whichever side.<\/p>\n

The story in Knack<\/em> that is most audaciously metafictional is \u201cKurt Vonnegut and the Great Bordellos of the Danube Delta,\u201d which actively invokes the work of the Australian writer Gerald Murnane, who would be a good example\u2014maybe the best example\u2014of a contemporary writer using metafiction in very original ways. As an editor at Dalkey, you were largely responsible for bringing Murnane\u2019s work to the attention of American readers, and since his writing obviously \u201cspeaks\u201d to you not just as an editor but as a writer, I\u2019m curious what it is about him that excites you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve just said I have no polemical investment in metafiction, you\u2019ve gone and brought up the one story or \u201cstory\u201d in Knack<\/em> that\u2019s the most like a polemic about metafiction. It\u2019s really a sort of essay, though since the narrator isn\u2019t quite me<\/em>\u2014this, too, is very Murnane-y\u2014my editor and I finally came to the conclusion that we might as well consider it a short story, because, well, why not.<\/p>\n

Its thesis, in part, is that most of our ways of talking about fiction or teaching fiction writing are themselves a form of fiction\u2014fiction about fiction\u2014on account of the fact that they have nothing to do, near as I can tell, with any practical approaches to the art. In other words, that one form of metafiction is<\/em> still cutting edge. It\u2019s being practiced assiduously by every famous author giving advice about how one has to love one\u2019s characters before getting them into trouble, and other such twaddle. One of the things that\u2019s so wonderful about Murnane, whom I hold up as the exemplar of a writer who\u2019s never said a single fatuous or impracticable thing about fiction, is that he\u2019s able to cut through all the crap and talk about building sentences, talk about the architecture of fiction, as being paramount to the process, a process that, after all, has got a lot\u2014some would say everything<\/em>\u2014to do with writing the best words in the best order, over and over again, till you\u2019ve got yourself a story, a novel, a what-have-you. But it\u2019s a process that does not<\/em> have much to do with psychodrama, not much to do with\u2014as I put it in \u201cVonnegut\u201d\u2014\u201cstage-managing suffering effigies.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he taught creative writing for a living, Murnane would stand in front of his class and write a story there and then to show how it was done. He didn\u2019t think his students should be made to take instruction from someone whose bona fides weren\u2019t indisputable\u2014I mean, imagine learning carpentry or neurosurgery from someone whose talents you had to take entirely on faith! And then who would only give you notes on your work, week to week, after<\/em> you\u2019d already built a wobbly table or killed your latest patient! Is that how we learn? Not remotely. Whereas Murnane sounds like he must have been a teacher you could trust.<\/p>\n

But look, all that\u2019s secondary to my admiration for his prose. I just think he\u2019s a pure joy. He shows how grammar itself is a pleasure, is the pleasure underpinning every other, in fiction. Like Sorrentino, though there\u2019s little else to connect them, Murnane\u2019s made a brilliant career out of showing the reader all his cards and yet still surprising her, still bringing that tear to the eye. If bringing tears to eyes is what you\u2019re after from fiction, well, he\u2019s your man. I mean, in virtually all of his work, he refuses to even name his characters\u2014he\u2019s not in the \u201cimaginary best friend\u201d business. His work is about the relationships readers have with fictional characters, and he does us the favor of treating the situation maturely, which is, if not a first, certainly a refreshing change. He cuts through all the foolishness, the received ideas I\u2019ve already alluded to that suck all the air out of conversations about fiction. He just, you know, writes brilliantly and patiently and takes you to pieces. He\u2019s probably our greatest living prose writer, in English.<\/p>\n

You have a strong affection for isolated, unsexy lives\u2014the man who still lives with his mother, or the woman who is married to a man who\u2019s invited his sister to share their house, or the pedant who lives alone with lots of cats. The one story here that features \u201ccool, young\u201d people ends with their heads being sliced off by a windowpane floating down from an old building. What is it about this side of humanity\u2014the hermetic, the socially unfit\u2014that so appeals to you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019re my people, man! Who else should I be writing about?<\/p>\n

But you know, I\u2019ve never thought about it that way before. I\u2019m tempted to say there\u2019s just something inherently interesting to me about folks who are more invested in their interior lives than their social lives. But then I\u2019d also be tempted to say that there can\u2019t be many people in the world who don\u2019t fit that definition, no matter how well-adjusted or outgoing they seem.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s because I think\u2014and this is wholly uncontroversial, no?\u2014that prose is a medium better suited to documenting the processes of thought than \u201caction,\u201d so it\u2019s better on the whole to stick to misfits who live mostly in their heads so as to avoid what I call film-treatment writing. You know\u2014She reached for, he paused, they looked at, the room was empty, et cetera.<\/p>\n

But, see, that all kind of strikes me as bullshit. I think my first response was probably the right one. It never really occurs to me to write about anyone else, left to my own devices. Maybe now that you\u2019ve called my attention to it, I\u2019ll take a stab at my own version of Rabbit, Run<\/em> or something. That could be hilarious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written an introduction to this interview where I make a point about the variety of your stories, that in reading them collectively, I feel unsure about where some of your ideas might have come from. I singled out \u201cTen Letters,\u201d \u201cThe Excise-Man,\u201d and \u201cDelete the Marquis,\u201d but of course the rest of the stories are just as eccentric. So where do <\/em>you go looking for such things? <\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of the stories began as disassociated words or phrases that stuck in my head. The first story you mention, \u201cTen Letters,\u201d contains some legitimate researched material\u2014mainly the stuff about patent medicines and crank cures in the early twentieth century, which I\u2019d done for a class a long time ago. But the real reason the story was written is that it struck me that the words ten letters<\/em> contain ten letters, letters as in units of the alphabet. So the game there is obvious. A story called \u201cTen Letters\u201d that features ten different letters\u2014letters <\/em>as in \u201cmissives\u201d\u2014that correspond to the aforementioned ten letters\u2014alphabetical\u2014of the title. I can also say that I was trying to cross Henry James with the aforementioned Mr. Mathews, there, not that I think the final story much resembles either author. James\u2019s What Maisie Knew<\/em> provided the divorce that powers the plot as well as a part of the opening sentence.<\/p>\n

The third story you mention, \u201cDelete the Marquis,\u201d came out of a conversation I was having with a friend about which movies where playing at a given theater. As near as I remember it, my friend was complaining that the movie marquee hadn\u2019t been changed yet, was still advertising the titles of the films that had been there the previous week. The phrase erase the marquee<\/em> was used, which I quickly emended, in my head, to delete the marquee<\/em> because of the rhyme, and naturally it\u2019s a very short trip from marquee<\/em> to marquis<\/em>. I thought it had a nice sound to it. It struck me as a gruff imperative, like Sink the Bismarck!<\/em> The trick was then to concoct a story that would make that title sensible. Luckily, I had a marquis already in mind\u2014the historical mesmerist Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, who, by the way, really did tie his patients to a tree. I\u2019d been saving him up for years.<\/p>\n

Only the second piece you mention, \u201cThe Excise-Man,\u201d came about in what I guess is a traditional manner. I was reading Ralph Steadman\u2019s book on the history and production of whiskey, Still Life with Bottle<\/em>, and he gifted me both the Robert Burns epigraph \u201cFreedom and Whisky gang thegither\u201d and the kernel of my story. Steadman writes, \u201cThese registered zombies [the excise-men] roamed the Highlands and the Lowlands, like lost souls in Purgatory, searching for the liquid gold that was needed to line the coffers of the English throne, waging wars in foreign lands.\u201d Which is to say, I nicked it, plain and simple. And I\u2019m not sorry.<\/p>\n

Martin Riker has written for the <\/em>New York Times, the<\/em>\u00a0Wall Street Journal, the <\/em>London Review of Books, and elsewhere. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collections of stories often lose steam as they go, because even stories that are great individually can sound too alike when read together. But Jeremy M. Davies\u2019s The Knack of Doing steers far clear of this problem\u2014almost aggressively so. His stories vary so wildly\u2014stylistically, topically, even conceptually\u2014that I can\u2019t imagine where half his ideas come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":910,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[2198,12059,14959,8600,411,21303,7876,11051,12515,7845],"class_list":["post-95025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-dalkey-archive-press","tag-gerald-murnane","tag-gilbert-sorrentino","tag-harry-mathews","tag-humor","tag-jeremy-m-davies","tag-metafiction","tag-oulipo","tag-ralph-steadman","tag-short-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNot Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jeremy M. Davies on his new book, \u201cThe Knack of Doing.\u201d\" \/>\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\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies by Martin Riker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 1, 2016 \u2013 Collections of stories often lose steam as they go, because even stories that are great individually can sound too alike when read together. But Jeremy M.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\" \/>\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=\"2016-03-01T19:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1100\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Martin Riker\" \/>\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=\"Martin Riker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"15 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Martin Riker\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/41abc5762963b44dce255b40b507b22d\"},\"headline\":\"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-01T19:00:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\"},\"wordCount\":2940,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd-1024x683.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Dalkey Archive Press\",\"Gerald Murnane\",\"Gilbert Sorrentino\",\"Harry Mathews\",\"humor\",\"Jeremy M. Davies\",\"metafiction\",\"Oulipo\",\"Ralph Steadman\",\"short stories\"],\"articleSection\":[\"At Work\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\",\"name\":\"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd-1024x683.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-01T19:00:38+00:00\",\"description\":\"Jeremy M. Davies on his new book, \u201cThe Knack of Doing.\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd.jpg\",\"width\":1650,\"height\":1100},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies\"}]},{\"@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\/41abc5762963b44dce255b40b507b22d\",\"name\":\"Martin Riker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f758bb89f346e4d401aee439e7e7b75bfe797ea116e9c07636363c75b509f916?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f758bb89f346e4d401aee439e7e7b75bfe797ea116e9c07636363c75b509f916?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Martin Riker\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/mriker\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies","description":"Jeremy M. Davies on his new book, \u201cThe Knack of Doing.\u201d","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\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies by Martin Riker","og_description":"March 1, 2016 \u2013 Collections of stories often lose steam as they go, because even stories that are great individually can sound too alike when read together. But Jeremy M.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2016-03-01T19:00:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1650,"height":1100,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Martin Riker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Martin Riker","Est. reading time":"15 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/"},"author":{"name":"Martin Riker","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/41abc5762963b44dce255b40b507b22d"},"headline":"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies","datePublished":"2016-03-01T19:00:38+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/"},"wordCount":2940,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd-1024x683.jpg","keywords":["Dalkey Archive Press","Gerald Murnane","Gilbert Sorrentino","Harry Mathews","humor","Jeremy M. Davies","metafiction","Oulipo","Ralph Steadman","short stories"],"articleSection":["At Work"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/","name":"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd-1024x683.jpg","datePublished":"2016-03-01T19:00:38+00:00","description":"Jeremy M. Davies on his new book, \u201cThe Knack of Doing.\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/jmd.jpg","width":1650,"height":1100},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/not-sorry-an-interview-with-jeremy-m-davies\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Not Sorry: An Interview with Jeremy M. Davies"}]},{"@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\/41abc5762963b44dce255b40b507b22d","name":"Martin Riker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f758bb89f346e4d401aee439e7e7b75bfe797ea116e9c07636363c75b509f916?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f758bb89f346e4d401aee439e7e7b75bfe797ea116e9c07636363c75b509f916?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Martin Riker"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/mriker\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95025","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\/910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95025"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95048,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95025\/revisions\/95048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}