Monica Ali reads Joshua Ferris's "The Dinner Party."
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 the dinner party by Joshua Faris.
I can predict everything that will happen from the moment they arrive to the little kiss on the cheek goodbye, and I just can't goddamn do it.
The story was chosen by Monica Ali, the author of the novels Brick Lane and in the Kitchen.
Her story Sundowners was published in the New Yorker in 2006 and became a chapter of her book Alan Tejo Blue.
Hi, Monica.
Hi, Debra.
So the story was first published in 2008, and it was Josh Ferriss first story in the magazine.
Did it have a big impact on you when you read it?
I'd already readdevelop.
Then we came to the end.
His novel.
Yes, before I read this story.
So I was already a fan of his.
And then we came to the end as a very, it's a laugh out loud novel that also deals with some serious issues, but it's very, very funny.
And I picked up on the humour straight away in the opening of the dinner party.
But then it gets darker and darker, this story as it unfolds, and I was really sucked in by that.
Do you feel as though this story is sort of in keeping with the novel, or do you feel as though it's a departure for him?