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

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

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Jeffrey Eugenides read his story,

Bronze, from the February 5th, 2018 issue of the magazine.

Eugenides is the author of three novels, including Middlesex,

which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

His most recent book, The Story Collection Fresh Complaint,

was published last year.

Now here's Jeffrey Eugenides.

Bronze.

The college freshman, being high, was also a little paranoid. Therefore, as he boarded the Amtrak colonial, he had the impression that people could tell.

Why was everyone staring?

Some smiling, some raising eyebrows, a few shaking their heads.

Do I reek? Eugene thought.

I used bonaca.

Then he remembered what he was wearing.

The white fur coat, the pink sunglasses, the striped collegiate scarf nodded at his neck.

Sort of a new look for him, part glam, part new wave.

Eugene's little secret? He wanted to be beautiful.

If that didn't work, noticeable would do.

He unzipped his coat and fanned himself hot from running down the platform.

It was a late November afternoon in the confusing year of 1978, and Eugene was headed back to school

...