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

I'm Deppertrisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Joseph O'Neill read his story, The Sinking of the Houston, from the October 30th, 2017 issue of the magazine.

O'Neill has published four novels, including Netherland, which won the

Penn-Falcner Award for Fiction in 2009, and the Dog, which came out in 2014.

Now here's Joseph O'Neill.

The Sinking of the Houston

When I became a parent of young children, I also became a purposeful and relentless opportunist

of sleep.

In fact, sleep functioned as that period's subtle denominator.

I found myself capable of taking a nap just about anywhere, even when standing in a subway

car or riding an escalator.

I wasn't the only one.

Out and about, I spotted drowsy or dozing people everywhere,

and I realized that a kind of mechanized mass somnambulism is an essential component of modern life,

and I gained a better understanding of the siesta and the snooze and the death wish.

Then the three boys grew big.

Grew from toddling alarmists into wayward urban duffuses,

neurologically unequipped to perceive the risks incidental to their teenage lives.

Several nights a week, I lie awake in bed until the front door has sighed shut behind every last one of them.

Even then, even once they're all safely home, there are disquiting goings-on.

Objects are put in motion to frightening sonic effect.

...