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 Garth Greenwell read his story, Harbour, from the September 16th, 2019 issue of the magazine.

Greenwell's first novel,

What Belongs to You, was published in 2016 and won the British Book Award for debut of the

year. A new book of fiction, Cleanness, will be published in January. Now here's Garth Greenwell.

Harbor Harbor Harbor Even in the dark, I like to look at it, though the sea was never truly dark.

Even now in the off-season it caught the light of the moon, which hung high and almost full,

and of the signs of the few restaurants and hotels that

were open in the new town, so that the whole harbor shimmered with points of light.

It had been months since I had seen the sea a year, and I was hungry for it. I had stepped

to the edge of the terrace to check my phone, but found myself staring at the sea instead.

You could lose yourself in it. That was what I liked. It was beautiful, but also it was like

looking at nothing. The sight of it drowned out thinking, like the sound of it drowned out noise.

And at first I didn't hear the others calling me to join them.

I smiled as I turned, though I resented being called back, and saw that they were standing

in a circle beside the tables where they had been smoking and talking their glasses empty.

"'Come here,' one of the American writers said.

We're playing Spin the Bottle, and I laughed and took my place.

We were choosing partners.

There would be a reading to close the festival at the end of the week,

and we would read in pairs, one American, one Bulgarian.

...