This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Debra Triesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear T. Carragason Boyle read his story, Princess,

which appeared in the November 7th, 2022 issue of the magazine.

Boyle has published more than two dozen books of fiction, including the novels outside looking in and talk to me.

His most recent story collection I walked between the raindrops came out earlier this year.

Now here's T. Carragason Boyle.

Princess.

She tried the door. The door was unlocked. She went in.

The moment was layered and complex, almost like a fairy tale, but where were the three bears?

Upstairs, barking. Did bears bark?

No, but dogs did, and that was what was going on here.

Dogs barking and scrabbling with their black shiny toenails.

Paul nails? At the closed door, at the top of the stairway.

The stairway that was carpeted and strewn with soft, welcoming shadows cast by various objects in the dimmer glow of the lamp

behind the couch that was only ten feet from where she was standing.

There were pillows on the couch, a whole flotilla of them, and there were two arm chairs flanking it.

A coffee table, bookshelves, the black knellety of a flat screen TV affixed to the wall across from her.

When she moved, and she moved only a foot or two into the room, edging that was what she was doing, edging in,

the screen gave back her reflection in a way that was too obscure to matter.

There may have been a voice calling from the room at the top of the stairs.

Cameron, is that you? Hello? Is somebody there?

...