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 Gish Jen read her story No More Maybe from the March 19th, 2018 issue of the magazine.

Jen has published four novels, including Mona in the

Promised Land and World and Town, and the short story collection, Who's Irish? Her most recent book

is a non-fiction study titled The Girl at the Baggage Claim, explaining the East-West

culture gap. Now here's Gishchen. No more maybe.

Since my mother-in-law came to visit America, she is quite busy.

First, she has to eat many blueberries, because in China they are expensive, while here they are comparatively cheap.

Then she has to breathe the clean air.

My husband, Wuji, and I have lived here for five years, so we are used to the air. But my mother-in-law has to take many fast walks, breathing,

breathing. Trying to clean out her lungs, she says, trying to get all the healthy oxygen inside her.

She also has to look at the sky.

So blue, she says, during the daytime, I have not seen such a blue since I was a child.

At night time, she says, look at the stars, look, look.

She has to post pictures of the stars on WeChat for her friends.

And she has to take some English language classes.

Because these classes are expensive in China, she says.

Here, they are free.

She thinks this is very strange.

Why are they free, she asks.

She says, America is a capitalist country.

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