2019-12-02
1 小时 0 分钟Ann Beattie joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Dédé,” by Mavis Gallant, which appeared in a 1987 issue of the magazine. Beattie has published eleven story collections and nine novels, including “Mrs. Nixon” and this year’s “A Wonderful Stroke of Luck.” She was also a winner of the 2005 Rea Award for the Short Story, as well as the PEN/Malamud Award. She has been publishing fiction in The New Yorker since 1974.
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 DD by Mavis Galant, which was published in the New Yorker in January of 1987.
At that moment, Day did an unprecedented and courageous thing.
He picked up the platter of melon crawling with wasps and took it outside as far as the foot of the tree and came back to applause.
At least his sister clapped, and young Madame Chevalier Crochet cried, bravo.
Bravo.
Dede smiled, but then he was always smiling.
The story was chosen by Anne Beatty, who's the author of more than 20 books of fiction, including the story collection, the accomplished guest and the novel a Wonderful Stroke of luck, which was published earlier this year.
Hi, Anne.
Hi, Dobra.
So you mentioned to me that you read this story for the first time last summer.
How did you come across it then?
I'm a visiting writer at the University of Virginia this fall, and I have to give two public talks.
And I was pulling books off of my shelf, just looking for different examples of some things that I wanted to mention in those talks.
And I pulled down the best american short stories of the eighties, which was edited by Shannon Ravenel.
And I thought, oh, if I've never heard of this Mavis gallant story, it just blew me away.
I mean, I just loved it.
I want to do nothing but think about this Mavis gallant story.