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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 Joseph O'Neill read his story,

Light Secrets, from the January 26th, 2026 issue of the magazine.

O'Neill is the author of one-story collection and five novels,

including Netherland,

which won the Penn Faulkner Award for Fiction

in 2009,

The Dog, and Godwin,

which was published in 2024.

Now here's Joseph O'Neill.

Light Secrets My friend P. and I agree to have lunch at a restaurant equidistant from our respective homes.

A nasty rumor about P has reached my ears.

I'm not going to mention it to P, of course.

That would be hurtful, but the rumor prompted me to instigate the lunch out of a solidarity that cannot be revealed. P turns up in what looks like a safari suit. Everyone's deep into

their 40s these days and getting touchier by the minute.

I must choose my words carefully.

Looking sharp, I say.

Pants, jacket, the whole thing, 12 bucks, P says.

...