Paula Mejia’s article on Jean Stein and her greatest legacy, the narrative oral history, was just published in The Paris Review. Includes interviews with Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Stein’s seismic approach to the oral history influenced a generation of authors. Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, who wrote the landmark oral history of punk rock, Please Kill Me, told me that Stein’s work had galvanized them. “I think Norman [Mailer] was the one who was like, You gotta read this, Legs. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, right,” McNeil said. “Probably picked it up when I was hungover and read it in like a day. I was just like, Whoa! Just gobbled it up, gorged myself.”
Check it out at The PARIS REVIEW