Hi, I'm Meg Wallitzer, selected shorts as regular host.

But in the before Meg era, we had a wonderful series of guest hosts.

One was the amazing actor Hope Davis, and this week we're repeating a show she presented

a couple of years ago. I'll be back next week if you still want me.

Mom and dad saved the world, and Dave Eggers tells you all about it.

This week on selected shorts.

On this episode of selected shorts, stories about making peace, with your brother,

with your children, and with yourself. Stay with us.

I'm Hope Davis, and you're listening to selected shorts.

The program that brings you great short fiction,

read live on stage at Symphony Space in New York City.

I've been a selected shorts reader for quite a while now.

For me, reading comes naturally. I am the daughter of a librarian.

And it provides a nice counterpoint to my television and film work in movies like American Splendor

and Greenland, and television projects including in treatment, your honor, and succession.

On this program, our three stories look at challenging family relationships and how,

in each, some kind of resolution is reached. In one, the narrator reconnects with her estranged brother.

In the second, social activism and parenting are intertwined, and in the third,

a listener favorite, an extraordinary bond between sisters is tested.

Our first work, Break, is by Lebanese American novelist Robbie Alamedine.

First published in The New Yorker, the story later became part of his new novel,

The Wrong End of the Telescope, which follows an Arab American transgender woman's journey

...