This is The Writer's Voice, New Fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

The July 27th issue of The New Yorker is a bonus issue, an anthology of pieces from the magazine's archives on the subject of American descent.

The issue includes a reprint

of Shirley Jackson's story, The Lottery, and to accompany that, we're re-releasing the

following episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from 2008, in which AM Holmes reads The

Lottery and discusses it with me. We hope you'll enjoy it, and thank you for listening.

This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from The New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Treasman, 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

by Shirley Jackson called The Lottery. Seventy-7th year I've been in the lottery, old man

Warner said as he went through the crowd, 77th time. The lottery was chosen by A.M. Holmes, who is the

author of six novels, including This Book Will Save Your Life, and Two Story Collections. She has published a personal history and two short stories in The New Yorker. Hi, A.M. Hi, Debra. You wrote an introduction to Jackson's collection, The Lottery and Other Stories. And in it, you referred to the lottery as an icon in the history of the American short story. What did you mean by that? You know, I meant several things. I mean, I think the lottery is a story that is, I think, taught in every American

school. And I often think it's taught at a point in young people's lives where we're just waking

up to the oddity of things and the terror that is in everyday life.

And so I think it is iconic in the sense that it is a deeply American story, a deeply terrifying story.

And it's also a story that after you've read it, you never fully forget it.

You know, it kind of comes and goes, but it lingers there.

I think it embeds in the, you knows in the young American psyche in some way.

I was taught it in a Canadian high school. The North American psyche. Exactly, the North American psyche.

It was so controversial when it was published back in 1948. Hundreds of people canceled their

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