S4E4 | Bob Ross Paints Your Portrait

The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams reads entries from “Concerning the Future of Souls” (issue no. 247, Spring 2024), a collection of stories following Azrael, the angel of death and transporter of souls. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/8252/concerning-the-future-of-souls-joy-williams Subscribe to the Paris Review

In Zach Williams’s “Trial Run” (issue no. 239, Spring 2022), an employee is subjected to two coworkers’ conspiracy theories when their office is targeted by an anonymous white supremacist hacker. The story is read by Michael Chernus, Danny Mastrogiorgio, and Gabriel Marin. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links:  www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7873/trial-run-zach-williams Subscribe to the Paris Review

“We were thirteen and conspiratorial and what was said is now out of reach.” Jim Fletcher reads Peter Orner’s “Foley’s Pond” (issue no. 202, Fall 2012), a quietly devastating short story about the effects of a tragic accident on a boy and his community. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6173/foleys-pond-peter-orner Subscribe to the Paris Review

The legendary actor George Takei reads one of the oldest stories in the Review’s archive. Published by the magazine in 1957, “The Victim” is Ivan Morris’s English translation of the Japanese author Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s 1910 literary debut. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: theparisreview.org/fiction/4872/the-victim-junichiro-tanizaki Subscribe to the Paris Review The Japanese American Museum: https://www.janm.org/

Sean Thor Conroe shares entries from “The Walk Book”—his meticulous, funny travelogue about his 2014 attempt to walk across the United States—including some rain-soaked field recordings. This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore, and was sound-designed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: theparisreview.org/letters-essays/8039/the-walk-book-sean-thor-conroe Subscribe to the Paris Review

The Nobel Prize–winning Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk discusses the souls of animals, discovering feminism, and her home in the village of Krajanów where she was once neighbors with “three different translators of William Blake in an excerpt from her Art of Fiction interview with Marta Figlerowicz. This episode was produced and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: theparisreview.org/interviews/7968/the-art-of-fiction-no-258-olga-tokarczuk Subscribe to the Paris Review

“We needed erotic touch to tell us what we were.” Robert Glück reads from About Ed, a memoir about his relationship with his former partner Ed Aulerich-Sugai. The performance is paired with excerpts from his Art of Fiction interview with Lucy Ives. This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore, and was mixed and sound-designed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/8016/the-art-of-fiction-no-260-robert-gluck https://theparisreview.org/miscellaneous/7896/about-ed-robert-gluck Subscribe to the Paris Review

“Nothing reifies a romance like proximate disaster.” Seated at her kitchen table, Jean Garnett reads her essay “Scenes from an Open Marriage” and chats with the Review’s deputy editor, Lidija Haas, and senior producer of the podcast, Helena de Groot. This episode was produced, sound-designed, and mixed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: theparisreview.org/blog/2022/06/29/scenes-from-an-open-marriage/ Subscribe to the Paris Review

“The only colors we’re going to use will be blacker than most blacks. Mm-kay.” Terrance Hayes reads his poem, “Bob Ross Paints Your Portrait.” An homage to the iconic host of the PBS show The Joy of Painting, and an exploration of Blackness: “deep-space black, black-hole black … lampblack and ink black, boot black and blackjack and blacker.” This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore. It was sound-designed, mixed, and features original scoring by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: theparisreview.org/poetry/7883/bob-ross-paints-your-portrait-terrance-hayes https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/457422/so-to-speak-by-hayes-terrance Subscribe to the Paris Review

The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Sharon Olds discusses sex, religion, and writing poems that "women were definitely not supposed to write,” in an excerpt from her Art of Poetry interview with Jessica Laser. Olds also reads three of her poems: “Sisters of Sexual Treasure” (issue no. 74, Fall–Winter 1978), “True Love,” and “The Easel.” This episode was produced and sound-designed by John DeLore. The audio recording of “Sisters of Sexual Treasure” is courtesy of the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger. Additional Links: theparisreview.org/interviews/8000/the-art-of-poetry-no-114-sharon-olds theparisreview.org/poetry/3462/the-sisters-of-sexual-treasure-sharon-olds Subscribe to the Paris Review