The Paris Review Issue 252

by Emily Stokes (Editor), Kelley Deane McKinney (Managing Editor), Dennis Zhou (Senior Editor)

Genres: Short Stories, Poetry

217 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2025

Reviews

[Bryce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed The Fête, The Visit, and interview with Marie NDiaye. fun bit of art as well. a perfect addition to my performative male halloween costume.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect! I got this at the Texas Book Festival because I've seen Dylan Joseph praise The Paris Review on YouTube. The Paris Review is a quarterly issue of art, short stories, poetry, prose, and interviews with writers.

I'm now a Paris Review devotee. I love that I haven't heard of any of these authors or poets before. The interviews and prose really opened my eyes up to more diverse and obscure literature. I already want to read Marie NDiaye's novels and more from Zans Brady Krohn. Highlights in this summer 2025 issue for me were the short story "Saying Nothing Nicely" and all of the art inserts. So beautiful! The advertisements at the start and end of The Paris Review are advertisements I do not mind.

[Wendy Liu]

Loved the Tom Crewe story (The Fete), which reminds me in many ways of the Larkin poem An Arundel Tomb, plus the lovely interviews with Marie NDiaye and Fanny Howe.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following N+1 Issue 50, "Harsh Realm," this was the second literary magazine issue I had read. Though I did enjoy it, my enjoyment of The Paris Review Issue 252 came from a very different place than the N+1 issue.

I will admit that I have only read a single issue of either magazine, so my judgements here are from a generally narrow place. While I enjoyed N+1's personality more than The Paris Review's, The Paris Review seemed to have a consistently higher quality of writing than N+1. Three of the pieces in this issue particularly stood out to me: "The Fête," which mastered a sense of summery nostalgia for a time well over a century before I was born, "The Visit," which featured a painfully accurate depiction of how small inconveniences can boil over into a massive argument, and "After the Haiku Period," which seemed somewhat trite upon first glance but featured some interesting symbolism upon closer reading.

I did not care for the interviews as much as the short stories, as I simply found them less interesting, and most of the poetry was too surreal for me to make sense of. I think that this was made up for by the visual art sections, though. This issue was admittedly hard to put down at certain times and I appreciated how simple it was to pick up and quickly read it for a few minutes. I already have the next issue in my possession and am looking forward to reading it relatively soon.

[Jerry Muzsik · Rating 4 out of 5]

WHERE I discovered ANUK (Anuk Arudpragasam).

One quote from first story:

Not holding her hand-only cradling her fingertips. It was most unlike him, yet like him all the same. This was how it would be, she told herself, to be married to him: a vague, tentative, fin-gertipping sort of love. If she ever married Edmund, it would mean she had become vague and tentative herself. It didn't bear thinking about.

[Maggi Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Visit - Anuk Arudpragasam

[Raffael Hirt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Tom Crewe's "The Fête" and Anuk Arudpragasam's "The Visit"

[Dieuwke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed “the fête” by Tom Crewe and “the visit” by Anuk Arudpragasam (a man! He really nailed the women and their dynamics) and both the interviews

[william · Rating 4 out of 5]

packed with so much. every story, interview, poem, and picture was gorgeous

[Jose Carpio · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Visit by Anuk Arudpragasam was the standout in this one

[C Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly enjoyed almost everything in this issue. The opening story and The Visit were outstanding. But I also loved the babysitting story, the closer, and both interviews.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good issue, the final 2 stories were not for me, but the rest was really good. the art was simple but well done.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t like anything in this one, unfortunately.

[Bret McGuire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overall collection of work. Crewe's "The Fete" is the standout but don't sleep on the late stories: Krohn's "Saying Nothing Nicely" and especially Joy Williams with "After The Haiku Period"