2022-05-02
53 分钟Camille Bordas joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “A Father-to-Be,” by Saul Bellow, which was published in The New Yorker in 1955. Bordas’s novel “How to Behave in a Crowd,” was published in 2017
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 a father to be by Saul Bello, which was published in the New Yorker in January of 1955.
The notion that all were under pressure and affliction, instead of saddening him, had the opposite influence.
It put him in a wonderful mood.
It was extraordinary how happy he became.
And in addition, clear sighted.
The story was chosen by Camille Bordas, whose novel how to behave in a crowd was published in 2017.
Hi, Camille.
Hi, Deborah.
So when did you first read Saul Bello?
I probably first read Saul Bellow after I moved to Chicago, so it would have been around 2012 or 2013.
Not that I didn't know who Saul Bello was before, but it was a bit intimidating to me, I think.
And then, yeah, I moved to Chicago, and I kept hearing his name, and I didn't come to his stories until very recently because one of my students told me, yeah, he has good stories, too.
He's not just a novelist.
I think I read Humboldt's gift and then almost all his novels after that.
Yeah.
So Humboldt's gift made you want to read the others?
Yes, absolutely.