This is The New Yorker Fiction Podcast from The New Yorker Magazine.

I'm Deborah 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 Black Lights by Tom Jones,

which was published in The New Yorker in October of 1992.

Weird. Sleeping in the neuropsych ward at night,

I sensed the presence of a very large rabbit under my bunk.

A seven-foot rabbit with brown fur and skin sores,

who took long waking breaths.

I didn't want to do it, but I had to keep getting out of bed to look.

The story was chosen by Rachel Kushner,

who's the author of two novels,

Tellex from Cuba and The Flamethrowers,

both of which were finalists for the National Book Award.

A high-richal.

Hi, Deborah.

So can you tell me why you chose to read a story by Tom Jones today?

Because Tom Jones had died recently,

and I had been influenced by his fiction,

and knew him, and had briefly studied with him,

I thought it would be a good time to revisit some of that work.

The obituary headline in The New York Times said something like,

...