This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Andrea Lee read her story, The Children,

from the June 10th and 17th, 2019 issue of the magazine. Lee is the author of four books,

including the novel Lost Hearts in Italy and the story collection Interesting Women. A new

story collection, Red Island House, will be published in 2021. Now here's Andrea Lee.

The Children.

The adventure of the Lost Airs begins when Shea and her friend Justinia run into Harena at the Fleur-de-Zil Cafe.

This happens in the early 2000s, at the same time that a criminal at large on Anjavavi Island is cutting off people's heads.

The mysterious beheadings are not connected to the events recounted here, except to establish the lawlessness that is always present behind the dazzling Anjavavi panorama of sugar-white beaches and cobalt sea.

The crimes begin to surface one hot January morning as a French hotel manager is taking his pre-dawn

constitutional along Roquele Bay and spies through a mist of sand flies, something just above the

tideline that looks like an unhusked coconut. It turns out to be a human head, one that was last

seen on the shoulders of a part-time sweeper at the Frenchman's hotel.

In the next months, four more severed heads are discovered,

hideously marooned near grounded pirogues,

on paths through the sugar cane,

and even on the rocks that are used by villagers as public toilets.

The victims are all men from various Malagasy tribes,

Antendroi, Simi Haiti, Sakalava, night watchmen and groundskeepers of so low a status that no one bribes the island Jondarmory into investigating their deaths.

This is the state of affairs when Justinia arrives from Florence to spend two weeks

at Shea's place on Anjavavi before embarking on a trek on the main island of Madagascar.

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