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 Rachel Cusk read her story The Stuntman,

from the April 24th in May 1st, 2023 issue of the magazine.

Cusk, a Guggenheim fellow, is the author of four nonfiction works and 11 novels,

including the outline trilogy and most recently second place.

Now here is Rachel Cusk.

The Stuntman.

At a certain point in his career, the artist D,

perhaps because he could find no other way to make sense of his time and place in history,

began to paint upside down.

This is how I imagine it.

At first sight the paintings looked as though they had been hung the wrong way round by mistake,

but then the signature emblazoned in the bottom right hand corner clearly heralded the advent of a new reality.

His wife believed that with this development he had inadvertently expressed something disturbing about the female condition,

and wondered if it might have repercussions in terms of his success.

But the critical response to the upside down paintings was enthusiastic,

and D was showered with a fresh round of the awards and honours that people seemed disposed to offer him,

almost no matter what he did.

The couple lived in a region of forest, some distance from the city,

for despite the worlds approval of him, D had been angered and hurt by it,

and could not bring himself to forgive it.

...