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 a visit by Stephen Millhouser,

which was published in The New Yorker in August of 1997.

Although I had not heard from my friend in nine years,

I wasn't surprised, not really, to receive a short letter from him dashed off in pencil,

announcing that he had taken a wife,

and summoning me to visit him in some remote upstate town I had never heard of.

The story was chosen by Richard Powers,

who's published eleven books of fiction,

including the Goldbug Variations and the Echo Maker,

which won the National Book Award in 2006.

Hi, Richard.

Hi, Debra.

Welcome.

So when you were trying to choose a story to read today,

you said that it was important for you to choose a story

that involved humans interacting with non-humans,

whether animals, plants, or other forms of life.

Why was that something that you were looking for?

Yeah.

...