2014-10-02
37 分钟George Saunders joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss Grace Paley’s “Love,” from a 1979 issue of the magazine, and Barry Hannah’s “The Wretched Seventies,” from a 1996 issue.
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 not one, but two stories, love by Grace Paley and the wretched seventies by Barry Hanna.
Ned Maxey had stared out a window, weeping, fasting, and praying in his way, in character of both the drunkard and the penitent, he had watched life across the street.
The stories this month were chosen by George Saunders, whose own stories have been appearing in the magazine since 1992.
His latest collection, 10 December, is now out in paperback.
Welcome back to the podcast, George.
Nice to be here, Deborah.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
Now, last time that you were on the program seven years ago, you read an Isaac bobble story called you must know everything.
This time you're reading these two very short, more recent stories by Grace Paley and Barry Hanna.
Grace Paley's story is from 1979.
Barry Hanna's is from 1996.
Why these two pieces and why talk about them together?
We're at the sort of the beginning of a semester up here at Syracuse, and I always like to kind of almost like reboot my whole understanding of the story form.
Like, just forget everything I was thinking last year and start fresh.
And so one way to do that is just to start with the simple short one page examples, kind of the form at its purest.
And these two struck me as being really wonderful in that they're silly and they're funny, and they're also completely valid short stories in their own right.