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

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Curtis Sidenfeld read her story, A for Alone, from the November 2nd 2020 issue of the magazine.

Sidenfeld has published one story collection,

You Think It, I'll Say It, and six novels, including Prep, Eligible, and Rodham,

which came out earlier this year.

Now here's Curtis Sidenfeld. A for alone.

Irene's medium, the one in which she has exhibited at galleries is textiles, but for

interrogating Graham Pence, she decides to use Polaroid photos and off-white tintoretto paper.

Even though the questions will be the same for all the men, she handwrites them in black

ink because the contrast of her consistent handwriting with the men's varied handwriting

will create a dialogue in which she is established as the

interrogator. Before her lunch with Eddie Walsh, she writes, date, name, age, profession. When prior to lunch

today did you last spend time alone with a woman who is not your wife?

Are you aware of the Modesto Manifesto, also known as the Billy Graham rule, also known as the

Mike Pence rule? If so, what is your opinion of this rule? When I invited you to lunch, what was your reaction?

She and Eddie are meeting at a Thai restaurant downtown.

Unless it feels organically relevant, she plans to make no mention of the project until after

the arrival of the check, which she will pay. Almost 30 years ago,

as undergraduates at the U, Irene and Eddie both took introduction to ceramics. The studio

featured two Potter's wheels and was open until midnight, and Irene and Eddie spent many

more hours there than was necessary,

...