The Paris Review Review

Dear Friends of The Paris Review:

The new issue of the magazine, #174, will be landing in subscribers' mailboxes and in bookstores in the next ten days. You'll see at once that The Paris Review looks different: a bit taller, a bit slimmer, and altogether refreshed. I hope you'll find it more inviting than ever and give it an especially close read. I've lived with the pieces in the new issue for months now, and I keep being surprised and excited by them. I feel truly lucky to be publishing such essential work.

We’ll be celebrating the new issue and the publication of the latest Paris Review anthology—The Paris Review Book of People with Problems—with public events across the country in the coming months. Tickets go on sale today for a Paris Review night at the New York Public Library on September 17, with Salman Rushdie (the subject of the Art of Fiction interview in the current issue) and Miranda July (author, film director, and contributor to the new anthology). In San Francisco that same week, on September 15, anthology contributors Annie Proulx and Julie Orringer will read from their work at the Booksmith. And on October 5, Chicago Public Radio's "Stories on Stage" will host an evening of readings from The Paris Review. Full details of each event are below.

Please stay in touch—subscribe, renew, and get a sneak preview of the redesigned Paris Review—at www.theparisreview.org. We’re busy putting together issue #175, which will be coming your way in November.

My best,

Philip Gourevitch
Editor


UPCOMING EVENTS

9/15 Thursday, September 15 at 7:00 P.M.
BOOKSMITH
1644 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
With Annie Proulx and Julie Orringer.

9/17 Saturday, September 17 at 7:00 P.M.
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
The Celeste Bartos Forum
Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street
New York, NY 10018-2788
With Salman Rushdie, Miranda July, and Philip Gourevitch.
For tickets, visit www.smarttix.com or call 212-868-4444.
For more information, visit www.nypl.org/live

10/5 Wednesday, October 5 at 7:30 P.M.
CHICAGO PUBLIC RADIO'S "STORIES ON STAGE"
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
For tickets call The Museum of Contemporary Art box office at
312.397.4010. Prices are $18 for non-members, $15 for radio and museum
members, and $16 for students and seniors. Museum contact: Judy O'Malley.

Hi all, I've been a lurker but when I read this item on my (trashy, scandalous!) gossip feed today I had to join so I could share:

We Wish to Inform You That Your Short Story Will Be Killed With Your Poems

Finally, the literary review you've never read has a new editor you sort of know! The Paris Review has announced that New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch will edit the august publication after the ouster of Brigid Hughes.

First announced on FishBowlNY, The New York Times reports:

Mr. Gourevitch (pronounced gor-A-vitch) said in an interview that he applied for the job because of his fondness for "a magazine with a great legacy that does not need to be remade so much as revitalized."

"The magazine has stayed very fresh in some rapidly changing times, and it did it by sticking to a clear sense of publishing the best material it could find," he added. He said he would add new features, including a portfolio of poems by a single poet rather than single poems by many poets throughout an issue.

Congratulations, Philip. We await not really reading your work.

New Editor of Paris Review Is Writer for The New Yorker [NYT]

What was the first issue of the Paris Review you remember seeing/reading?

What is the oldest issue on your bookshelf? Do you keep older issues?

The new issue is out.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTERVIEW
Barry Hannah, The Art of Fiction No. 184

FEATURE
Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl
Christopher de Bellaigue, What Is Reasonable?

FICTION
Jennifer Davis, Giving Up the Ghost
Robert McCarthy, I Am the Author of My Own Life
Haruki Murakami, Heigh-Ho
Padgett Powell, Horses

POETRY
Judith Berke, Playground
Alexandra Budny, Two Poems
A.B. Epstein, Nomad Journeys
Edwin Gallaher, Two Poems
Vicki Hearne, The Wax Figure Ruined
Anthony Hecht, Visitations
William Logan, Crossing Newfoundland
Wayne Miller, Reading Sonnevi on a Tuesday Night
Benjamin Paloff, Two Poems
John Poch, February Flu
Lynne Potts, Two Poems
Jaroslav Seifert, Mozart in Prague
Patty Seyburn, The Alphabetizer Speaks
Jeffrey Skinner, Two Poems
Henry Sloss, From the Heights
Charlie Smith, Out of the Way Bungalow-Style Areas
Dabney Stuart, Gifts
Al Wiggins, Was It Quiet Like That?
Imants Ziedonis, Two Poems

ART
Matthew Buckingham, Untitled (The Truth about Abraham Lincoln)
Maurizio Cattelan, Now
Shirana Shahbazi, Goftare Nik (Good Words)
Olav Westphalen, Greetings from America

Another commentary on the troubles at the Paris Review.

Here's the cover of the next issue



...telling.

I guess I started this community at the worst/best moment since the Paris Review seems to have undergone a serious editorial burp. I admit that I'm not a long time reader of the Review, so I don't know how to identify the changes from Plimpton to Hughes and I don't know whether the changes that she made were "good" or not or if they kept in line with Plimpton's vision. However, I do remember reading about the trouble (at least for some) that Tina Brown caused over at The New Yorker and how the magazine has made quite the recovery over the years. Of course, selling a variety of books full of themed cartoons and essays hasn't hurt their exposure.

But the Paris Review is different and has a much smaller readership - one that the Board is attempting to sustain and expand. I'm curious to see what they've got up their sleeve.

Below is the full text of the New York Times' article concerning the Board's decision to not renew Ms. Hughes contract. I was surprised that she got the editor position in the first place. Yes, she's worked her way from the ground up, but that she is only one year older than I gave me pause. But I understand the tension of "know the system inside and out" vs. "new blood" and the Board's unanimous nomination of her at the beginning demonstrates that they had no qualms.

But who knows what happened? I'm certainly curious.

( Anyway, here's the Times' article.Collapse )

Welcome! I have begun this community for those people who enjoy reading the quarterly occurrence known as The Paris Review. A time-tested literary foundation of over fifty years, the Review is currently in the midst of change now that George Plimpton has passed without an heir apparent. I created this community for those who enjoy the literature and interviews found within the Review, but also for those who wish to discuss and be a part of the culture that makes up the Review and its readership, as well.

I want this community to be a place of cheerful debate and critical observation and commentary. I hope, also, that this will be a enjoyable community for those seeking other like souls who read such literature. Though this is a community for the Paris Review, there is no reason why we cannot post about things that would be of interest to its readership, literary or otherwise.

That said, WELCOME!