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

I'm Debra 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 The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris.

I can predict everything that will happen from the moment they arrive to the little kiss on the cheek goodbye.

I just can't go down and do it.

The story was chosen by Monica Ali, the author of the novel's brick lane and in the kitchen.

Her story, Sundowners, was published in the New Yorker in 2006

and became a chapter of her book, Alan Tejo Blue.

Hi, Monica.

Hi, Debra.

So the story was first published in 2008

and it was Joshua Ferris' first story in the magazine.

Did it have a big impact on you when you read it?

I'd already read that we came to the end.

Is novel?

Yes, before I read this story, so I was already a fan of his.

And then we came to the end as a very, it's a laugh at, loud novel.

That also deals with some serious issues, but it's very, very funny.

And I picked up on the humor straight away in the opening of The Dinner Party.

But then it gets darker and darker.

The story is unfold and I was really sucked in by that.

...