This is The Author's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

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

On this episode of The Author's Voice, we'll hear Curtis Sittenfeld read her story,

Gender Studies from the August 29th, 2016 issue of the magazine.

Sittenfeld is the author of five novels, including Prep and American Wife.

Her most recent novel, Eligible, was published earlier this year.

Now here's Curtis Sittenfeld.

Gender Studies Nell and Henry always said that they would wait until marriage was legal for everyone in America

and now this is the case. It's August 2015.

But earlier in the week, Henry eloped with his graduate student Bridget.

Bridget is 23, moderately but not dramatically attractive. One of the few non-stereotypical

aspects of the situation Nell thinks is Bridget's lack of dramatic attractiveness, and Henry

and Bridget had been dating for six months.

They began having an affair last winter when Henry and Nell were still together.

Then in April, Henry moved out of the house that he and Nell own and directly into Bridget's apartment.

Nell and Henry had been a couple for 11 years.

In the shuttle between the Kansas City airport and the hotel where Nell's Henry had been a couple for 11 years. In the shuttle between the Kansas City airport

and the hotel where Nell's weekend meetings will occur, the shuttle is a van and she is its only

passenger, a radio host and a guest are discussing the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump.

The driver catches Nell's eye in the rearview mirror and says,

he's not afraid to speak his mind, huh? You gotta give him that.

Nell makes a non-verbal sound to acknowledge that, in the most literal sense, she heard the comment.

...