This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from The New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Treesman, 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 drinking coffee elsewhere by Zizi Packer,

which appeared in the New Yorker in June of 2000.

When it was my turn, I said, my name is Dina, and if I had to be any object, I guess I'd be

a revolver. The sunlight dulled as if on cue.

The story was chosen by Alexander Hemann, who is the author of six books of fiction,

including the story collection Love and Obsticles, and the novels The Lazarus Project,

a finalist for the National Book Award, and the World and All It Holds, which came out last year.

Hi, Sasha.

Hello.

So what made you choose drinking coffee elsewhere to read and talk about today?

Well, I love the story, as I love the book, and I often teach it to my students, particularly

for the past few years. I've been teaching mainly undergrads at Princeton, and the way they

respond to it and the way they understand. The university politics or the university dorm politics and such things, it's always refreshing.

And so bringing it back to them brings up new things in the story every time.

Yeah, you know, it was written 24 years ago, but I'm not sure if we know exactly when it's set, but probably a few years before that.

Does everything that happens in the story feel relevant for your students now?

I mean, I remember when the story was published, and I remember I was published in early 2000s,

but when I was looking at the manuscript now, I kind of forgot that it's 25 years old.

That is most of the students who I made read the story

...