2014-09-30
40 分钟Nathan Englander Reads John Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio”
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 John Cheever's story, the enormous radio.
Did you hear that?
Irene asked.
What the radio.
A man said something while the music was still going on, something dirty.
The story was chosen by Nathan Englander, whose stories have been appearing in the magazine since 1990.
His most recent collection is what we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank.
Welcome back, Nathan.
It's so good to be back.
Thanks for having me.
Several years ago, you read a story by Isaac Bicheva Singer on the podcast, and now you've gone to very different territory with John Cheever.
Are you a lifelong Cheever fan?
I am actually a super gigantic Cheever fan.
As a reader, I'm a massive fan of the stories and a writer, I just think it's an education to read him.
He always lets you know what world you're in, and there's something I love about that so deeply.
Now, when you picked this particular story, the enormous radio, you said that it was very unchieverish, even though it was absolutely in his voice.
What did you mean by that?