This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Treisman 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 every night for a thousand years by Chris Adrian, which

appeared in the New Yorker in October of 1997.

All the worst cases went to Union Square Hospital because it was closest to the train station.

He went with them and kept up the service he'd begun at Falmouth, visiting, talking, reading,

fetching and helping months past.

The story was chosen by Nathan Englander, who's the author of five books of fiction, including the novel Kaddish.com and the story

collection, what we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer

Prize in 2013.

Hi Nathan.

Hi Deborah.

Welcome.

I know that you and Chris Adrian were in the Iowa writing program together eons ago.

This story came out in 1997. Iowa Writing Program together eons ago.

This story came out in 1997.

Did you know each other then?

Yes.

There's a million reasons I chose this story for now,

like, you know, empathic and political and personal and just the poetry of it but

...