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 FaceTime by Laurie Moore, which was published in The New Yorker

in September of 2020.

Who could feel how large a transformation was really occurring when the earth seemed to

be enjoying itself more than ever and who could speak of such things to a man who was clutching

his plastic necklace of oxygen?

The story was chosen by David Means, who's the author of a novel and six story collections,

including instructions for a funeral and two nurses smoking which came out in 2022.

Hi David.

Hey Debra.

So let's talk about Laurie Moore's writing in general first.

Have you been a lifelong fan?

I have.

I really have.

I think Laurie Moore is a national treasure, the kind of treasure that you sort of take

for granted because she's consistently around and always writing these amazing stories that

almost look easy, but they're not easy.

What do you think is the most sort of salient characteristic of her writing?

Well besides her humor, I'd say that she's really radically innovative and does new things

...