2023-06-02
1 小时 0 分钟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 two ruminations on a homeless brother by David Means, which was published in the New Yorker in May of 2017.
Rain or shine, for about a year and a half, give or take, he has slogged with the same gimp, the same loping swing of arms, the same cigarette burning between his fingers, and hes rooted in the same trash cans, the one on the corner of Midland and Franklin or the one on the corner of river in front.
The story was chosen by Otessa Moshfegh, whos the author of four novels, including my year of rest and relaxation, and most recently, Lab Fauna.
Hi, Odessa.
Hi, Debra.
So thank you for coming back.
It's my pleasure.
It's a pleasure again.
And I'm wondering how you first came across this story by David means and what made you want to talk about it.
I went looking for this story.
I had seen some of David's work in different literary journals in the New Yorker, but hadn't really taken his work on as something to study.
And then when I found this story, it baffled me so hard that I had to read it several times just to sort of parse out what had been happening to me in the course of the reading.
And I found it just fascinating.
And it's a kind of writing that feels familiar.
It feels really, I mean, for lack of a better word, deep and personal.
The narrator, if you can call him that, I guess the you.
The narrator is also the you, which.