Julian Barnes reads Frank O'Connor's "The Man of the World."
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 story from 1956, the man of the world by Frank O'Connor.
This is probably our pair, he whispered.
We better not speak anymore in case they might hear us.
I nodded, wishing I had never come.
The man of the World was chosen by Julian Barnes, whose stories appear frequently in the New Yorker.
His latest book, a meditation on death called nothing to be frightened of, is out in paperback from vintage.
He joins us from a studio in London.
Hi, Julian.
Hi.
I know you recently edited the Everyman's Library collection, the best of Frank O'Connor.
Did you choose him for the podcast because all of this work was so fresh in your mind, or has he always been important to you?
He's always been important to me.
I actually edited an earlier collection for Penguin about ten years ago.
I discovered him in a curious way.
I saw an old, very old penguin with the title, didn't even look at the author's name.
I saw the title my Oedipus complex and other stories.
And I thought, that's wonderful, because whoever wrote that title, my oedipus complex, is a real writer.