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

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Edwidge Dantacat read her story,

Sunrise, Sunset, from the September 18th, 2017 issue of the magazine.

This recording was delayed by Hurricane Irma.

Dantacat is the author of more than a dozen books, including the novels The Dewbreaker and Claire of the Sealight.

Her most recent book is the memoir essay, The Art of Death, which was published in July.

Now here's Edwidge Dantacat.

Sunrise, sunset. It comes on again on her grandson's christening day. A lost moment, a blank spot,

one that Carol does not know how to measure. She's there one second,

then she is not. She knows exactly where she is, then she does not. Her older church friends

tell similar stories about their surgeries, how they count backwards

from ten with an oxygen mask over their faces, then wake up before reaching one, only to find

that hours and even days have gone by. She feels as though she were experiencing the same thing. Her son-in-law, James,

a dreadlocked high school math teacher, is holding her grandson Jude, who has inherited

her daughter's globe-shaped head, penny-colored skin, and long fingers, which he wraps around Carol's chin whenever

she holds him. Jude is a lively giggler. His whole body shakes when he laughs. Carol often

stares at him for hours, hoping that his chubby face will bring back memories of her own children at that age,

memories that are quickly slipping away.

Her daughter, Jan, is still about 60 pounds overweight on Jude's christening day, seven months after his

birth.

Jean is so miserable about this, and who knows what else, that she spends most days in her

...