I have to be honest, I have never really read The Paris Review, and that’s not a big deal. Right? I just don’t remember to read it. I know about it, but I don’t know about it. When the fine folks over at Picador tipped me to this wonderful book, I had to backtrack a little and started with the 200th edition of The Paris Review. Good stuff.
Having said that, I’d like to tell you that there is no better way to get your hands around good writing than to start with a collection of short stories. The neat part about this book is the writers who talk about the short stories they love. I’m partial to Raymond Carver, and I’ve always loved the writing of David Means, who in this book talks about Carver’s story “Why Don’t You Dance”. It’s a great moment, as Carver was keen on capturing, about a man who is giving away his life, selling it on the front lawn. It was made into a great movie with Will Ferrell, and surprisingly Will embodied a lot of what I felt when I first read this story. Means makes a good point about short stories becoming high art, and with this book you get to read what Means says, and what Carver meant, as the original story and Means thoughts are side by side.
I recently read Jesus’ Son, and fell madly in love, after years of avoiding it. Jeffrey Eugenides talks about a story from that book called “Car Crash While Hitch Hiking”. I remember feeling sort of run over a little bit myself when I read the Johnson story. JE gets into it, talks about how easily you can slip into the moisture of these words. Johnson was keen on leaving you without plot, and into the mind of Fuckhead, who is by nature a complete washout as a human. Johnson does most of his work, or his best work, in almost no time or space; he leaves you with only the gory details. The car crash itself is a nasty piece of business, and later in Jesus’ Son things get much worse. When I saw the movie adaptation of this collection I was struck by how remote and sad it all seemed, almost like the only emotion to be had was yours.
I don’t want to spoil all the good stuff…but there is an embarrassment of riches in this collection, writers talking about their favorite short stories…Daniel Alarcon on Joy Williams, Ann Beattie on Craig Nova, Dave Eggers on James Salter, and many more.
