2023-07-02
1 小时 11 分钟George Saunders joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “So Late in the Day,” by Claire Keegan, which was published in The New Yorker in 2022. Saunders is the author of the novel “Lincoln in the Bardo,” and five story collections, including “Tenth of December” and “Liberation Day,” which came out last year.
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month we're going to hear so late in the day by Claire Keegan, which was published in the New Yorker in February of 2022.
He'd sat behind her on that first morning, and while the introductory speaker jargoned on, he looked at the little buttons on the back of her blouse, wondering if she'd fasten them through the loops herself.
The story was chosen by George Saunders, the author of the novel Lincoln and the Bardo, and five story collections, including 10 December and Liberation Day, which came out last year.
Hi, George.
Hi, Deborah.
Nice to be with you.
Welcome back.
So you were excited this time to choose a story by Claire Keegan for the podcast, and I'm wondering if you can say a bit about what excites you in her writing.
Yeah, you know, I just heard her story foster mentioned on the story club thing that I do on substack, and I went to get it, and on the COVID I saw that David Mitchell has said this was as good as Chekhov.
And of course, part of me goes, huh?
And then I read Foster.
I'm like, oh, yeah, actually, wow, what a story.
You know, beautiful story.
So I went to get small things like these and was equally blown away by that.
So when you were in touch, I thought, well, let me see if there's anything else.
And you sent me this lovely story.
Yeah, it was a great experience to read it kind of with the question in mind, is this the one I want to do?