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 Laurie Siegel read her story Dandelion from the March 25th, 2019 issue of the magazine.

Siegel is the author of three story collections and

five novels, including her first American and half the kingdom. A new book of stories and

memoirs, the journal I Did Not Keep, new and selected writing, will be published in June.

Now here's Laurie Siegel.

Dandelion.

That Henry James, when he got old, rewrote his early work, as was my excuse for revisiting

at 90, a story I had written in my 20s.

I was 10 years old when I had to leave Austria,

so the day with my father in the Alps

must have taken place on our last family holiday the previous August.

I wish Muti were coming, but she had woken with one of her migraines, and I stood outside the hotel in the grass, getting my shoes wet with dew, waiting, and wanting for nothing.

Light tinkled among the trees, and the grasses gleamed sword-like says my story.

Curious how our language asks for similes.

What is something like?

The sky was like liquid light, I wrote.

Liquid is close, but it's not quite the right word.'

"'The mountains back looked like something sculpted.

"'One had the feel of the distant footpath in the fingertips.

"'Between the mountains and myself,

...