The most-recently appointed editor of The Paris Review, Lorin Stein, came to speak in the magazine’s namesake city earlier this week, in the cobbled square in front of Shakespeare & Company. The talk was held in partnership with NYU’s Summer Creative Writing program, though those gathered before the microphone were a varied throng of literary disciples. Stein spoke alone, delivering a Paris Review soliloquy about “how it started, its Paris connection, what it’s doing nowadays.” This unaccompanied format was perhaps a regrettable choice, as Stein himself soon admitted—part-jokingly/part-sheepishly—that he’d quickly run out of material. Nonetheless, he discussed the publication with enthusiasm and answered questions as gamely as he could, despite requests for information about the magazine long before his time.
The Review was started in 1953 by American expats in Paris, who found independent publications’ then-pervasive emphasis on politics and criticism distasteful. To counteract the hard facts and the tart critiques, George Plimpton, Harold L. Humes, and Peter Matthiessen created their own forum in which to spotlight fiction and poetry. As with many expats, they were not necessarily engaged with local French culture, but were deeply dedicated to its literature. Nowadays, the magazine’s Paris connection is a thin one. Michel Houellebecq and Emmanuel Carrère have graced the Review of late, but as a young French editor remarked, those famous names only reflect a very broad view of contemporary French literature.
Stein spoke of The Paris Review trademarks, namely its interview: dialogue-essay hybrids about writing technique that showcase a genuine collaboration between interviewer and interviewee. He spoke about the magazine’s online presence, which he framed as “participatory journalism”: writers depicting their actual experiences about culture/art as non-experts. He described the blog as providing “behind the shop” information about the publication, and as the daily platform from which to launch the quarterly. Stein was not shy to relay statistics: under his reign subscriptions are up by a third, with a 500% increase in online traffic.
He also made mention of the Review on iPad. It is an iteration of the magazine that he would “not recommend,” despite being a facsimile of the journal’s format. The exception, he allowed, was for Europeans: the added expense of shipping is resolved instantaneously via technology.
Stein explained his own role at the Review. He has an advice column, dispensing wisdom from “what book to get dad for his birthday” to “what to do if your friend gets a book advance and becomes unbearable”. He spoke about his transition from book to magazine publishing: “I can read with much less anxiety”. He talked more broadly about the role of the editor, citing Bob Silver as a hero. As for the inevitable comparisons to the editorial legacy of the Review, he said he feels connected to the “retrograde” philosophies of “George and his gang” as well as to his predecessor Philip Gourevitch, of whose approach he stated: “the Venn diagram has a lot of overlap in it.” He also tipped his hat to n+1, inspired and wowed by how “unavoidable” it has become. He declared that, beyond just getting the attention of editors and assorted literary types, “part of a magazine’s job is to change the conversation.”
