2020-08-02
51 分钟Tommy Orange joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Years of My Birth,” by Louise Erdrich, which appeared in a 2011 issue of the magazine. Orange’s first novel, “There There,” was published in 2018 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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 the years of my birth by Louise Erdrich, which was published in the New Yorker in January of 2011.
Growing up in the midst of a large family, I had never registered the visitations from my presence at those rare moments when I was alone as something strange.
The first time I was aware of it was when I was taken from Betty and put in a white room.
After that, I occasionally had the sensation that there was someone walking beside me or sitting behind me, always just beyond my peripheral vision.
The story was chosen by Tommy Orange, whose first novel, they're there, was published in 2018 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Hi, Tommy.
Hey, Debra.
So what made you choose a story by Louise Erdrich for the podcast?
So you had published, I think, last year, a short story of hers called the Stone.
It's a pretty short short story, and it was a strange story, and it just struck me.
So when you asked me to choose.
A story, I went looking for another one of hers.
And she's actually published a lot in the New Yorker because I haven't known her for short stories.
She only has one collection of short.
Stories, you know, with a pretty massive career.
Most of her stories start as stories and end up in her novels.
Yeah, that's what I've heard her say.