This is The Author's Voice, New Fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, Fiction Editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Author's Voice, we'll hear Thomas McGuane read his story,

Papaya, from the August 22nd, 2016 issue of the magazine.

Thomas McGuane has published 10 novels and three short story collections, including, most recently, Pro Fair.

He's been publishing fiction in The New Yorker since 1994.

Now here's Thomas McGuane.

Papaya.

Errol Healy should have retired by now from his marine insurance business,

but it was such a going concern, it was hard to shut it down.

And he worried about what he'd do in retirement.

He was widowed, and his only child, Angela,

had gone up to Gainesville, graduated and moved to Washington with her husband,

Mike, a marketing consultant at the Seattle Art Museum.

Every year, Earl traveled to Seattle to see Angela and Mike,

and of late his granddaughter, Chavon.

McKee West was always and intensely home,

and Angela was amused to see his rush to get back. She missed Key West, not at all, despite the fact that she had been elected Miss Conk in 11th grade at Key West High. She'd been a conventional

sorority girl at Gainesville,

and if a word could describe her life thus far, it would be smooth. It was more than peculiar

that Errol had made a career ensuring ships and boats, mostly commercial fishing boats,

trawlers, long-liners, northern draggers, and even a processing ship

...