This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Deborah Triesman, fiction

editor at The New Yorker. On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear

Sterling Holy White Mountain read his story, Featherweight, from the April 5th, 2021 issue

of the magazine. Holy White Mountain is a former Stegner Fellow and current Jones Lecturer

at Stanford University. He is an unrecognized citizen of the black-feet nation. He's at work

on a novel. Now here's Sterling Holy White Mountain.

Featherweight. When I first met my love, I'd been off my reservation for a little more than

a year. I'd become acculturated, we'll say, to university life and willingly. I wanted

to know what larger America was all about. I took on the aspect of a young dog. Everything

was new to me. I had my nose of everyone's ass. First there was Lana than Julie. Then

a few other names I can't remember. Then there was Barbara. That should have been the

name of a grandmother, but in fact it belonged to a sweet thing who liked to call me her

favorite Indian toy. I'll be whatever you want, I said, long as we keep knocking those

boots. Which we did because she was young. Almost too young for a guy more than a few years

out of high school. She had the courage that belongs only to those who don't know the death

is just down the block waiting to introduce himself. As for me, I was not yet old enough

to not feel young. According to the literature, I should have been well in my way to a fulfilling

life of stability and money in houses or whatever, but she didn't know that. I was just

finishing my gen-ads trying to stay awake. That sort of thing. I called her Barbie. I had

always wanted to be with a doll. Barbie, I would say. Barbie, Barbie, oh Barbie. She should

have been the one. Me and her, 17 children of our own, adopt nine more. A farm next to

a lake full of muskrats. Two rescue dogs, probably. Lana, Julie, Barbie. Their names were

...