Membership has its privileges, whether you're in a book club or a vampire coven.

I'm Meg Wallitzer, and on the next selected shorts, we explore fiction about the delights and the dues paid for being part of a club.

And the only thing you need to do to join our little literary club is hold tight.

You're listening to Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction,

one short story at a time. Most of us belong to some kind of collective, a formal organization in a school or place of worship,

a casual coffee clutch, a fantasy football league, who knows?

We may not need to hunt in a pack or huddle together for warmth, but this urge to form cliques is an instinct

we share with a lot of other animals. And it's interesting that no matter how loose the

affiliation, social pods usually have a few things in common. One, there's an initiation period.

Two, there are responsibilities or dues to pay, even if it's just sharing one's

best cookie recipes. And three, there are rules to follow. Sometimes the rules are unspoken. Don't

talk while Tanya plays her hand, while others are strict, disqualifying anyone who strays. And on this

selected shorts, we're going to hear stories about

belonging and sacrifice in two very different kinds of social orders, what it takes to get in,

what it takes to stay in, and how to know when it's time to let go. One piece involves bookworms

and the books they love. The other involves nocturnal animals and the

hunting they crave. Our first story, well, I wrote it. It was included in an anthology of stories

about summertime, appropriately titled Summer, and with this book, I find myself an excellent

company among authors I admire.

It's about a very passionate club and an early period in life when all you've got is time,

and the season stretches out before you like an endless green meadow.

Reading the story now over 30 years after having written it, I find myself wistful about the past,

...