Who’s next at The Paris Review?
Two weeks ago, Philip Gourevitch surprised everyone with the announcement that he was leaving his post as editor of The Paris Review. Aside from some gag speculation that the job was perfect for Lou Dobbs, we haven’t heard a peep about who’s in the running for the gig.
So we decided to compile a short list of people we think might be on the long list currently being considered by a committee established to find Gourevitch’s replacement, a committee made up of Antonio Weiss, the publisher of The Paris Review, Terry McDonnell, director of the Paris Review Foundation, Robert B. Silvers, the editor of The New York Review of Books, and Peter Matthiessen, a founder of The Paris Review.
We’re talking speculation plain and simple. Irresponsible speculation. No deep sources. And all for fun.
The basics: it’s my hunch that no one not currently residing in New York has a chance. Despite its name, The Paris Review is intimately connected to the New York literary scene. (Though Gourevitch does live in Brooklyn, so this rather meaningless phrase certainly includes the New York environs.) Also, internal candidates are being considered, or at least “nothing has been ruled out at all,” according to Gourevitch.
So, the list, starting with the locals:
As far as internal candidates go, Meghan O’Rourke (Slate culture editor, and more importantly the poetry co-editor of the Paris Review) has to be high on the list. She’s young, smart, and has edited fiction and non-fiction at New Yorker. A published poet, she’s also somewhat controversial for her success.
Another idea would be Jonathan Dee (novelist and former senior editor of The Paris Review). While not currently at the magazine, Dee is well liked in New York, a “literary darling” in the words of the Village Voice.
Nathaniel Rich (senior editor and author of the novel The Mayor’s Tongue) is another possibility, though he’s younger than above candidates, and less experienced too.
Another wildcard is be Matt Weiland, former deputy editor of The Paris Review, and now a senior editor at Ecco. Weiland left the magazine recently (he came from Granta), but maybe he’d agree to come back as the boss?
And as far as outsiders go…
Ben Metcalf of Harper’s is a natural choice. He’s smart and knows how to put together a magazine.
Some think Elissa Schappell, co-founder of the literary magazine Tin House, and a columnist of sorts for Vanity Fair, might have a shot.
Ben Marcus, former fiction editor of Fence, and author of three books of fiction is also well-liked and qualified for the job. If not him, maybe another Marcus: Greil Marcus, to be exact. Co-editor of this year’s A New Literary History of America, Marcus would be great at it the job, though it doesn’t seem his style.
How about David Kipen, former books editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and now director of literature at the NEA? Another critic, Art Winslow, former book editor of The Nation, might also be on the list.
Looking back to Gourevitch’s recruitment: I’d bet money that the Review committee will look to the staff of the New Yorker for ideas. George Packer and Lawrence Wright have both written fiction, so I think it’s fair to call them candidates… in some ways they are from same mold as Gourevitch. Another possibility is top fiction editor Deborah Treisman. Maybe she’d want to be her own boss?
If the magazine wants to hire the most high-profile person now out of work: why not nab Ruth Reichl? Though primarily a writer on food, Reichl could do it… not that the Paris Review could afford her.
What’s your crazy idea? If folks would be kind enough to post it below, we’ll post an updated list next week.
As I recall, John Jeremiah Sullivan was in the running when Brigid Hughes got it. Then, as now, he’d be a fine pick.
Deborah Treisman? Hard to figure the cost/benefit analysis, BUT I think it would be worth allowing her to ruin the Paris Review’s fiction section in order to opening up the possibility of a New Yorker fiction renaissance.
How about Joanna Yas? Or Lynne Tillman?
David Kipen was my first, and only, thought.
To me there are a few obvious choices. Jack Pendarvis, because he seems to possess the Plimptonesque humours and joie de lit that would help him create an updated version of the beloved lit journal. (”Pendarvis is a gifted, good-humored writer. He’s wry and silly, his language full of provocative puns, eloquent blarney and tips of the hat to the absurdity of modern culture. At his best, he is neo-Chaucerian. If you’re game, he’ll show you a rude, jolly time in a universe at once fantastic and familiar.” — New York Times Book Review, August 24, 2008)
The others, dependent on which way the journal is going to go…
Jonathan Franzen to take it in an even more elite, snobby direction, which would have its upsides and downsides, but all things being equal would keep the ship on an even keel. I believe someone like Franzen could turn the PR into a journal/mag/zine that more people in Ohio would be interested in reading (i.e. a more commercial and accessible endeavor). He also seems honest and isn’t afraid to make controversial statements, which would help garner more interest than the PR has managed to find in years.
Or at the opposite pole, Stephen Elliott, author of the memoir The Adderall Diaries and publisher/editor of The Rumpus. But the PR should choose him only if it wants to get a little more gritty or (hold onto your lit lingo hats) “authentic.” They shouldn’t go with Elliott if they don’t want to get readers who are interested in more than MFA writing or upholding the PEN/NY Publishing/Academia Complex party line, because Elliott is more “street” and less ivy than the current mostly clubish readership of the PR is comfortable with.
I often thought of Plimpton as more a writer than editor, all his accomplishments as the later notwithstanding. The writers I’ve mentioned are all of a level where editorship of the PR would not be an overwhelming challenge to them. In short, I don’t think the new editor should be chosen from a pool of editors at all, but rather, from the great variety of our current writers.
Hope it’s some one exciting who can romp away the dust.
As far as the proposed candidates, Ben Marcus has my vote.
Deb Treisman has staled the New Yorker’s fiction; the Paris Review doesn’t need that.
Kipen! Kipen! Kipen!
As David Kipen is still under contract to Melville House, we have to hope he doesn’t accept this position he so obviously deserves until he finishes our next project. In the meantime, we vote for another Melville House author who happens to be one of our greatest magazine editors already, although under-appreciated for his many discoveries in fiction writing — Lewis Lapham.
How about Tao Lin? There’s somebody who would shake things up. And I’ll bet he would increase their readership, too!
How about either Dennis Johnson, Antonio Weiss, Terry McDonnell, Robert B. Silvers, Peter Matthiessen, Bella Stander, C. S. Andropolous or me? Anything to lance the culture of backscratching, sucking up and self-promotion that so infests American literary culture today…
Editors? Mine have included Robert Gottlieb, Pat Strachan, Daniel Menaker, Charles McGrath, Alice Quinn, Ben Sonnenberg Jr., Jean Stein, Jonathan Galassi, Thomas Beller, Joanna Yas…. If the Paris Review can’t land anyone with such proven editorial skills as these individuals possess, there’s a young editor associated with the Harvard Review who has her own very impressive online literary and art journal, http://www.slushpilemag.com — and, for an operation run on its shoestring budget, she presents a lot of new literature often and well; my own experience of having work edited and published there was entirely pleasant.