Tobias Wolff reads Denis Johnson's "Emergency" and discusses it with The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman.
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, in his second appearance on this program, we're going to hear Tobias Wolf read emergency by Dennis Johnson.
Georgie's pills were making me feel like a giant helium filled balloon, but I was wide awake.
Emergency was first published in the New Yorker in 1991.
Tobias Wolf included it in his 1994 anthology, the vintage Book of contemporary short stories.
Wolf is the author of, among other books, the memoir this boy's life and the novel old school.
He is also a writer of short stories, ten of which have appeared in the New Yorker.
Welcome back, Toby.
It's good to be back, Deborah.
Now, last year we taped a podcast on Stephanie Vaughn's story dog heaven.
And at that point, you said that you also wanted to do this story by Dennis Johnson.
Very much.
Why was it so hard to narrow down to one?
Well, actually, Deborah, you know, I didn't narrow it down to one, did I?
I narrowed it down to two.
Exactly.
And you rationed me, so I had to come back and do this one.
And I actually have some others I want to do, too.