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 a different kind of imperfection by Thomas Beller.
His father and mother were extremely good looking, particularly his mother.
His father had been born in Vienna.
He had a certain monkey quality to him.
The story was chosen by said Serafizadeh, two of whose stories have been published in the magazine.
He's the author of several plays and the memoir when skateboards will be free.
Hi, Saeed.
Hi, Debra.
So you and Tom Bellar are friends or colleagues?
We are.
I didn't know if that was going to come out here.
You used to write for his website, Mister Beller's neighborhood.
We met playing basketball, and then he invited me once to write for his mrbellersneighborhood.com website.
Was that when you first read his fiction?
Had you read him before?
No.
I didn't even know he was a writer and didn't know much about his success until he invited me.