Paris Review
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The Rumpus Interview with Mark Leyner
Mark Leyner discusses his new novel, Gone with the Mind, about a failed novelist, Mark Leyner, who gives a reading to his mom in an almost-deserted food court.
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The British and American Henry James
The memorial in Chelsea Old Church tactfully describes him as “a resident of this parish who renounced a cherished citizenship to give his allegiance to England in the first year of the Great War”—the “cherished” insisting from the grave that James…
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Writ in Water
John Keats died on February 23rd, 1821. The Paris Review muses on the death obsessed poet’s life, and what he cryptically requested be written on his tombstone: Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
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Still Alive
Far from dying out, short stories have become more popular over the last five years. For the New York Times, Paris Review editor Lorin Stein articulates the value of literary solitude in a public world: You can’t be worrying how…
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Remembering Paul West
The Paris Review remembers Paul West, an absurdist author of over fifty books. Excerpts from his satire, Portable People, can be found here: Fat men are the wisest dreamers. I always ate up sleep, on my back or side virtually weightless,…
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On Becoming: Thoughts from Sheila Heti
And I just thought, “I have to teach myself how to write in a new way.” … I just wanted so badly to figure this out, to figure out how to write. As part of the Paris Review’s “My First…
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A Classroom of Atticus F., G., and H.
It has been a bad summer for the iconic characters of Southern literature. Over at the Paris Review, Sadie Stein takes a look at the unfortunate facts: Atticus was kind of a racist, and Atticus is the most popular male baby…
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The Old Sad Soak
The Old Soak is a hauntingly one-note character, and one wonders exactly what about his alcoholism made him such a bankable franchise. Imagine the pitch meetings that followed: “He’s a lush, see? He wants to booze it up, but he…
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I Have Wasted My Life
Over at the Paris Review, Dan Piepenbring talks about James Wright’s famous epiphanic poem Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota, in conjunction with Ann Beattie’s new story Yancey, and the general discussion and controversy…
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A Novel Throwback
Back in April, the Washington Post suggested magazines should return to the days of Dickens and serialize novels again, recommending that the Paris Review lead the charge. Now, the Paris Review has answered the call by serializing Chris Bachelder’s new novel,…
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Dante’s Horoscope: A Long, Prose-Filled Journey
This year marks Dante’s 750th birthday. But on what date should The Rumpus host our purgatorio-themed party? More importantly, what was Dante’s zodiac sign? If you’re a fastidious reader of The Divine Comedy and your horoscope, you should know the…
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Authors Dish on Their First Time
As a first time novelist, I thought it would be fun to read what people had said about my book [on Amazon]… One of them said that it read like an MFA exercise. And that really hurt, because it was…