2015-02-03
51 分钟Antonya Nelson joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss Tom Drury’s “Accident at the Sugar Beet,” from a 1992 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 Tom Drury's story accident at the Sugar Beet, which was published in the New Yorker in 1992.
I don't know if you've ever watched a spider making a web, said Dan, but I have, Bonnie, and it takes a long time, and there's a lot of going back and forth.
And even when this web is done, somebody might come along and destroy it just by their hat hitting it.
Know what I mean?
The story was chosen by Antonia Nelson, who has been publishing her own stories in the magazine since 1991.
Her most recent collection, Funny once, came out last year.
Hi, Tony.
Hi, Debra.
Now, the last time that you were a guest on the podcast, a few years ago, you read a story by Mavis Gallant, and this time you chose a piece by Tom Drury.
Do the two stories have anything in common aside from the fact that they appeal to your sensibility?
Gosh, I hadn't thought about that.
I suppose appealing to sensibility is about the first place one would start.
Well, both stories involve women who are somehow waiting for something.
In the Mavis gallant story, it was money.
And here it's something else.
Yeah, the something else is a little elusive, but, yeah, definitely the sense of waiting.
At the time I read the Mavis gallant story, I couldn't locate any of her books in print.