The Paris Review Interviews, I
by The Paris Review and Philip Gourevitch
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The Paris Review has introduced the important writers of the day. Adrienne Rich was first published in its pages, as were Philip Roth, V. S. Naipaul, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Mona Simpson, Edward P. Jones, and Rick Moody. In addition to the focus on original creative work, The Paris Review's Writers at Work interview series offers authors a rare opportunity to discuss their life and art at length.
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
From William Faulkner's famous reply, "The writer's only responsibility is to his art," to James Salter's confession — "What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish" — The Paris Review has elicited many of the most arresting, illuminating, and revealing discussions of life and craft from the greatest writers of our age. Under its original editor, George Plimpton, The Paris Review is credited with inventing the modern literary interview, and more than half a century later the magazine remains the master of the form. By turns intimate, instructive, gossipy, curmudgeonly, elegant, hilarious, cunning, and consoling, The Paris Review interviews have come to be celebrated as classic literary works in their own right. Now, from the treasure trove of the archives, Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch has selected twenty of the most essential interviews for the first of a three volume set. Here are Ernest Hemmingway, Truman Capote, Elizabeth Bishop, and many other novelists, poets, playwrights, memoirists speaking for the ages, with surprising candor, about all that matters most to them.
Review:
"You won't be able to get their rueful, witty, snappish, and thoughtful voices out of your head...these sixteen exceptional slices of literary history belong in the form the interviewees devoted their lives to, namely a finely made book, always at hand, always compelling." Booklist
Review:
"Read The Paris Review Interviews, I, not only to learn something about writing from the 16 authors questioned but also for Ernest Hemingway's satisfying dismissals of interviewer George Plimpton: 'The fact that I am interrupting serious work to answer these questions proves that I am so stupid that I should be penalized severely.'" Esquire
Review:
"The Paris Review Interviews, I, the first of three collections to be culled from more than 50 years of this premier literary journal's quarterly offerings, presents a set of groundbreaking, eclectic, indispensable Q&As with such masters as Elizabeth Bishop, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, and Joan Didion..." Elle
Review:
"At their best, the Paris Review interviews remove the veils of literary personae to reveal the flesh-and-blood writer at the source. By exposing the inner workings of writing, they place the reader in the driver's seat of literature." Billy Collins
Review:
"The Paris Review interviews are objects of wonder that formed my first and fiercest impression of what it was to be an author. I still ascribe any vivid remembered quote to their pages, even when it didn't appear there." Jonathan Lethem
Review:
"The Paris Review interviews have the best questions, the best answers, and are, hands down, the best way to steal a look into the minds of the best writers (and interviewers) in the world. Reading them together is like getting an fabulous guided tour through literary life." Susan Orlean
Review:
"I have been fascinated by the Paris Review interviews for as long as I can remember. Taken together, they form perhaps the finest available inquiry into the 'how' of literature, in many ways a more interesting question than the 'why.'" Salman Rushdie
Review:
"A colossal literary event — worth the price of admission for the Borges interview alone, and of course the Billy Wilder, and the Vonnegut, and and and and....Just buy this book and read it all." Gary Shteyngart
Review:
"There are so many potential points of entry to The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 1 — this jewel box of a collection of in-depth chats on the craft of writing—that one hardly knows where to begin.... [The] candid comments... are well worth the price of admission.... [An] indispensable collection." San Francisco Chronicle
Review:
"We're holding out for a guy who has The Paris Review Interviewson his bookshelf. The revered literary journal showcases its best interviews with some of the most talented writers ever, from Joan Didion and Truman Capote to Dorothy Parker and Kurt Vonnegut — perfect if you’re a writer or a wannabe, or if you just feel the need to redeem yourself for all those nights spent watching The Hills." Jane
Review:
"Utterly absorbing.... They are all fascinating and often quite funny.”" Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe
Synopsis:
By turns intimate, instructive, gossipy, curmudgeonly, elegant, hilarious, cunning, and consoling, the "Paris Review" interviews have come to be celebrated as classic literary works in their own right. Now, from the treasure trove of the archives, editor Philip Gourevitch has selected 20 of the most essential interviews for the first of a three volume set. 448 p.
Synopsis:
A Picador Paperback Original
About the Author
The Paris Review was founded in 1953 and has published early and important work by Philip Roth, V. S. Naipaul, Jeffrey Eugenides, A. S. Byatt, T. C. Boyle, William T. Vollmann, and many other writers who have given us the great literature of the past half century. Some of the magazine's greatest hits have been collected by Picador in The Paris Review Book of People with Problems as well as The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms and The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953.
Philip Gourevitch is the editor of The Paris Review, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and the author of A Cold Case and We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Philip Gourevitch
Dorothy Parker (1956)
Truman Capote (1957)
Ernest Hemingway (1958)
T. S. Eliot (1959)
Saul Bellow (1966)
Jorge Luis Borges (1967)
Kurt Vonnegut (1977)
James M. Cain (1978)
Rebecca West (1981)
Elizabeth Bishop (1981)
Robert Stone (1985)
Robert Gottlieb (1994)
Richard Price (1996)
Billy Wilder (1996)
Jack Gilbert (2005)
Joan Didion (2006)
Contributors
Acknowledgments
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:









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jtauches, April 15, 2007 (view all comments by jtauches)
They are great interviews, but they used to be FREE on the Paris Review Website!





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sdr19899, April 13, 2007 (view all comments by sdr19899)
Wonderful book. Given to me by a friend last Saturday and I am loath to put it down.





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Steve Walsh, February 1, 2007 (view all comments by Steve Walsh)
A great collection. Can't wait for the next two in the series.
View all 3 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780312361754
- Subtitle:
- Volume 1
- Author:
- Manufactured:
- The, Paris Review
- Introduction:
- Gourevitch, Philip
- Editor:
- Gourevitch, Philip
- Author:
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Picador USA
- Subject:
- Literary
- Subject:
- Authors, English
- Subject:
- English literature
- Series:
- Paris Review Interviews
- Series Volume:
- 01
- Publication Date:
- October 2006
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 510
- Dimensions:
- 8.26x5.66x.97 in. 1.00 lbs.











