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

I'm Debra 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 the Moons of Jupiter by Alice Monroe,

which was published in The New Yorker in May of 1978.

On the screen, a bright jagged line was continually being written.

The writing was accompanied by a nervous electronic beeping.

The behavior of his heart was on display.

I tried to ignore it.

The story was chosen by Claire Sustanovic,

whose story collection Objects of Desire was published in 2021.

Hi Claire.

Hi Debra.

So you chose a story by Alice Monroe to read today.

Has her work been important to you as a writer, as a reader?

Uh, both.

Yes, I have been a sort of, uh, lifelong worshipper of Alice Monroe.

Um, I think I was probably introduced to her by my mother,

when Rose a favorite of hers,

and she was also a favorite of my grandmother's,

and actually this copy of The Moons of Jupiter that I've been reading all week,

has her name on the cover.

...