The Paris Review Interviews: Vol. 1

(Paperback, Main)

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How do great writers do it From James M. Cain's hard-nosed observation that 'writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational,' to Joan Didion's account of how she composes a book - 'I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm' - The Paris Review has elicited some of the most revelatory and revealing thoughts from the literary masters of our age. For more than half a century, the magazine has spoken with most of our leading novelists, poets, and playwrights, and the interviews themselves have come to be recognized as classic works of literature.Now, Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch introduces an entirely original selection of sixteen of the most celebrated interviews. Often startling, always engaging, these encounters contain an immense scope of intelligence, personality, experience, and wit from the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote and Billy Wilder.

Reviews

* Nothing is lonelier or riskier than being a writer, and these interviews provide writers at all stages the companionship and guidance they need. -- Edmund White * The Paris Review Interviews, in their old Penguin trade paperback editions, were 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 * I have all the copies of the Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review. -- Ernest Hemingway

Author Bio

Philip Gourevitch was named editor of The Paris Review in 2005, succeeding George Plimpton, who was editor from 1953 until his death in 2003.