This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Treesman, Fiction Editor at the New Yorker.

Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

This month we're going to hear Muriel Sparks' story, The Ormaloo Clock,

which was published in the New Yorker in 1960.

And just before Gerta closed the door, I noticed standing upon the cabinet,

a large ornamental clock, its case enanalled rosalie with miniature in-set pastel paintings.

Each curve and twirl in the case of this clock was overlaid with the gilded bronze alloy that is known as Ormaloo,

the clock twinkled in the early sunlight which slanted between the window hangings.

The story was chosen by Joseph O'Neill, whose own story, The Referee's, appeared in the magazine in September.

His most recent novel, The Dog, was also published in September.

Hi, Joe.

Hi, Deborah.

You had your heart set on reading something by Muriel Sparks for this podcast.

Why is that?

Well, I just sort of love Muriel Sparks, and I also think that she's fallen by the wayside a tiny bit, certainly by comparison to her former stature.

And I also kind of knew that she had a very productive relationship with the New Yorker.

And I thought, I wonder what the first story that she ever published in the New Yorker was,

and it turns out to be this rather mysterious story, The Ormaloo Clock, a wonderful story, which I'd never read before.

So it was a great pleasure to find it and read it.

I was curious when you brought the story up because it was relatively far into her writing career.

I mean, not very far, but she was 42 when it came out, and I wondered why that was the first one.

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