Sarah Braunstein Reads “Superstition”

The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Fiction, Authors, Arts, New, Newyorker, Yorker

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2021

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sarah Braunstein reads her story “Superstition,” from the August 9, 2021, issue of the magazine. Braunstein is the author of the novel “The Sweet Relief of Missing Children,” which won the 2012 Maine Literary Award for Fiction and a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.
0:09.4	I'm Debra Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.
0:12.6	On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Sarah Bronstein read her story, Super
0:16.9	Sition, from the August 9th, 2021 issue of the magazine.
0:21.6	Bronstein is the author of the novel The Sweet Relief of Missing Children, which won the 2012
0:26.3	Maine Literary Award for Fiction and a recipient of the National Book Foundation's 535 award.
0:33.4	Now here's Sarah Bronstein.
0:37.0	Super Sition.
0:43.5	They were born to the cul-de-sacs of the Arizona desert, hose-drinking boys, allowed to run
0:49.3	loose, provided they came when called, and they did these two, James and Lenny, obedient
0:55.4	and clever.
0:57.0	Garage is packed with scooters, go-carts, arse mulls of water guns, each machine gun so-ger
1:03.1	more elaborate than the last.
1:06.1	They'd outgrown the toys only yesterday, but the rift was total.
1:10.2	Now they were sixteen and spent afternoons in the food court, dreaming up pranks, or
1:14.8	sprawled on the carpet watching sitcoms.
1:17.8	Their aimlessness was permitted, not a mark against their future.
1:22.1	They had been engifted and talented.
1:24.7	Lenny was funny and good at math.
1:27.6	James was an ace mimic.
1:30.5	Sometimes he was in the school plays.
1:32.8	James wanted to become an actor, a theater rat in Manhattan.
	...

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