2019-11-02
1 小时 5 分钟Garth Greenwell joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Shorn Lamb,” by Jean Stafford, which appeared in a 1953 issue of the magazine. Greenwell is a fiction writer, poet, and critic. His first novel, “What Belongs to You,” was published in 2016, and won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year. A new book of fiction, “Cleanness,” will be published in January.
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, on our 150th episode of the podcast, we're going to hear the Shorn Lamb by Jean Stafford, which was published in the New Yorker in January of 1953.
At the thought of her mother's golden hair in the firelight and the smell of her perfume, in the intimate warmth and the sound of her voice saying, isn't this gay, Miss baby?
The tears came faster, for in her heavy heart, Hannah felt certain that now her hair was cut off, her mother would never want to sit so close to her again.
The story was chosen by Garth Greenwell, whose first novel, what belongs to you, was published in 2016.
His second book of fiction, cleanness, will come out in January.
Hi, Garth.
Hi, Deborah.
So can you tell me what made you choose a story by Jean Stafford to read today?
You know, I am a late discoverer of Jean Stafford.
I studied poetry for most of my, really, for most of my life.
And Jean Stafford was, to me, horrifyingly, only Robert Lowell's first wife.
Right.
And I picked her up recently, and, you know, I am a convert and have a convert's enthusiasm.
I just think she's extraordinary.
What is it that defines her for you?
So there's this remarkable ability that she has to balance this kind of lacerating irony with a very plangent pathos.
And that's a combination that I find very few writers get right.