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

I'm Deborah 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 Dennis Johnson's story work.

Usually, we felt guilty and frightened because there was something wrong with us and we didn't know what it was.

But today, we had the feeling of men who had worked.

The story was chosen by Donald Andrew, whose fiction and essays have been appearing in the magazine since 1996.

His novels include The Verificationist and The Hundred Brothers, which were re-released last year in paperback by Piccadour.

Hi, Donald.

Hey, how are you doing?

Good.

So this story work appeared in the magazine in 1988.

Would you have read it back then?

Yeah, that's why I wanted to read it now, really.

Yeah.

I didn't even remember that it had been so far back.

I knew that it was a while ago.

What were your thoughts on first reading it?

There were two stories of Dennis Johnson's that the New Yorker published that year, I believe.

The other was two men and those stories are part of Jesus' son, the collection.

And they were the first stories by Johnson that I'd ever seen or read.

I'd read poems and I'd read a couple of the novels.

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