This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Treisman 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 Love Letter by George

Saunders which appeared in the New Yorker in April of 2020.

I just want to say that history when it arrives may not look as you expect based on the

reading of history books.

Things in there are always so clear one knows exactly what one

would have done. The story was chosen by David Sedaris who's the author of more

than a dozen books of essays, memoirs, and diaries, including most recently,

a carnival of snackery, and happy-go-lucky.

Hi David.

Hi, Deborah.

Welcome back.

Thank you for having me.

On previous episodes, you read stories by Miranda July and Wells Tower, and now you've chosen

George Saunders, and I'm wondering if for you there's some kind of thread between the three like what it is that their stories

Inspire in you or in sight in you hmm gosh

Well, I think the thing that unites them all is I clearly remember reading them when they came out.

Clearly remember reading them in the magazine and feeling shaken by them.

And when I read Love Letter, I actually wrote to George.

And I said, I think this is a, to me the

...