2015-05-02
22 分钟Joshua Ferris joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss Robert Coover’s “Going for a Beer,” from a 2011 issue of the magazine.
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 Robert Coover's story going for a beer, which was published in the New Yorker in 2011.
He finds himself sitting in the neighborhood bar drinking a beer at about the same time that he began to think about going there for one.
In fact, he has finished it.
Perhaps he'll have a second one, he thinks as he downs it and asks for a third.
The story was chosen by Joshua Faris, who's the author of three novels, including last year's, to rise again at a decent hour.
His own stories have been appearing in the magazine since 2008.
Hi, Josh.
Hi, Deborah.
So Robert Coover is sometimes described as a writers writer.
Why do you think that is?
And are you one of the writers hes a writers writer for?
I would say I probably am, yeah.
Ive been reading Coover since I was in college.
My guess is that the formal concerns that he has makes him primarily the reason that people talk about him as a writers writer.
Hes not first and foremost concerned with the things that kind of make for a more universal read.
Character is not always top most.
A driving plot is not always topmost.