The Paris Review, Interviewed

The Paris Review is perhaps the best of all literary journals, and almost certainly the most reader-friendly (yes Granta, even including you) due to its emphasis on great creative, rather than analytical, writing. It was founded in Paris (of course) in 1953, but made a permanent move to New York twenty years later. From its founding until 2003, it was edited by the now near-legendary writer George Plimpton, and the roster of writers who have debuted work in its pages is second to none. This roster includes everyone from writers like Jonathan Franzen, Rick Moody and Jeffrey Eugenides to older figures like Jack Kerouac, V.S Naipaul and Philip Roth (and it’s these last three who are pictured here).

The magazine is also well known for having interviewed, in depth, a vast number of the most important writers around about their work and working methods. Starting with E. M. Forster, the Writers at Work series has managed to examine the creative processes of a huge number of literary titans from Hemingway to Auden through Updike and Mailer to Waugh, Vonnegut and… well, you get the idea. A selection of these pieces was published in four volumes by Canongate, to some acclaim, as The Paris Review Interviews.

George Plimpton sadly died in 2003, which subsequently, and naturally, led to some fears for the future of the magazine. However the Review lives on, a testament to its staff’s continuing efforts to find and publish great writing. Plimpton’s initial successor as editor was the journalist and author Philip Gourevitch, who held the position for five years until he left to concentrate on his own writing. Gourevitch was succeeded in turn by the current editor, Lorin Stein. Mr Stein was kind enough to answer my questions about The Paris Review as it is today, as a means of previewing the Review’s event at Unbound. (It should be noted as an aside that the style and layout of this article are patterned after Writers At Work, as The Skinny’s humble attempt at homage).

INTERVIEWER

The Paris Review has developed considerably in the last few years, particularly in its online presence (which this reader, for one, thanks you for). Can you tell us a little about how you have gone about developing the magazine?

LORIN STEIN

Gentle reader, you are very kind! 

We relaunched the Review and the Web site at the same time last September. Our main idea, for the Review, was to go back to the original mission: to discover and champion the most inventive fiction and poetry and essays. We think this is what the Review does best – what it's for. We want it to be a laboratory for new writing and, through the interviews, an argument for the writers who matter most to us.

On the Web site, we started a blog – The Paris Review Daily – devoted to first-person writing about culture and the arts. The Daily serves a few purposes. It keeps us in touch with our subscribers – and, we hope, wins us new ones. It lets us talk about what we're reading, watching, listening to. It lets us publish writers who intrigue us but, for whatever reason, don't fit into the quarterly. It also gives quite a different picture of 2.0 culture than you'll find most places on the Web. I think that may be one reason that the Daily is so popular (popular, that is, for a gossip-free, insult-free arts gazette). We get more than 20,000 unique readers each week, which is more than I, for one, expected. 

INTERVIEWER

 Are any further developments planned?

STEIN

This week we're launching a digital edition of The Paris Review. It's just like the paper, but you can read it on your iPad or iPhone. It's cheaper than the paper edition – especially for foreign subscribers – and it's instant. You can buy it off our Web site.

INTERVIEWER

 Is it a daunting task to keep the standard of the writing up, or does the reputation of The Paris Review actually attract a high standard of submissions? My suspicion is that both are probably true.

STEIN

You hit the nail on the head. We get excellent stuff, and we have a terrible time deciding what to publish. The trouble isn't finding good fiction or poetry as such – the trouble is finding work that really *demands* our attention. That worries us and keeps us up at night.  

INTERVIEWER

 I'm sure there will be people reading our piece, either in print or online, who'd like to submit work to the Review. What advice would you give them?

STEIN

To use the paper post. It may take us a while to write back, but the submission is much less likely to go missing. More generally, I would urge them to read a few of our most recent issues. I think they may give some idea of what it is we're looking for. (Though I'd have no idea how to express it in words.)

INTERVIEWER

Is there a decision process behind selecting writers to interview for the Writers at Work series, or are there enough potential and desirable candidates to interview that it's almost decided for you?

STEIN

There's no special process. As often as not, someone on staff yells out, "Do you realize So-and-So has never been interviewed?" Then we find someone to interview So-and-So. In general, we interview writers who are very famous (at least among other writers) and who are favorites of the staff.

INTERVIEWER

 I may be wrong, and correct me if I am, but I don’t think you've ever interviewed a Scottish writer. Is there any chance that this could change in future?

STEIN

Good Lord, you're right. I felt sure we had interviewed Sorley Maclean--no soap. No Muriel Spark either. I have no idea why not--but it is, as we say in New York, a *shanda.* [Our note: ‘Shanda’ is a Yiddish word, meaning shame or scandal. The equivalent Scottish phrase would probably be ‘that’s a sin, so it is’].

INTERVIEWER

Nearly all of the Writers at Work features have been made accessible online. Can you tell us why this is? (And again, this reader thanks you greatly).

STEIN

You are very welcome! The interviews were just sitting there in libraries, not doing anyone much good. Which seemed a pity, since there's nothing else like them – in many cases, the Paris Review interview is the most revealing interview ever given. We wanted them to be a public resource. And of course we wanted to remind the world how good they are – they are their own advertisement.

INTERVIEWER

What sort of format will the event follow, and can you tell us a little about the writers who will feature?

STEIN

The writers will be Jennifer Egan, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel A Visit From The Goon Squad, the deadpan and extremely wry Donald Antrim, whose short stories in The New Yorker are always the first thing I read, and John Jeremiah Sullivan, who just won The Paris Review its first National Magazine Award for the best essay of the year. John is our Southern Editor – a position created very much with him in mind. He happens also to be a star reporter at the New York Times Magazine.

The four of us haven't really discussed format. No doubt there will be brief readings. Maybe some questions and answers. In all events, I am assured there will be a tent.