Garrison Keillor has agreed to host the 50th-anniversary party for the Paris Review, which will serve not only as a fund-raising event but also as a celebration of the life of George Plimpton, the Review editor who died September 25. The benefit will also honor the magazine's other founding editors: writer Peter Matthiessen; the late novelist Thomas L. Humes; former Viking Press president Thomas Guinzburg; the late art director William Pene du Bois; poet Donald Hall; novelist William Styron; and financier John Train. All proceeds from the benefit will go to the Paris Review Foundation.
Among the events planned for October 14 are readings from the Review by authors Robert Pinsky and E.L. Doctorow and actors Alec Baldwin and Timothy Hutton. In addition to a can-can performance and indoor fireworks, the first Paris Review Eagle award will be presented to an editor, publisher or writer who has furthered the cause of contemporary literature.
