This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Deborah Treasman,

fiction editor at The New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice, we'll hear Tommy Orange

read his story, The State, from the March 26th, 2018 issue of the magazine. A graduate of the

MFA program at the Institute of American

Indian Arts, Orange will publish his first novel, There, from which this story was adapted

in June. Now here's Tommy Orange. The state, before you were born, you were a head and a tail in a milky pool, a swimmer.

You were a race, a dying off, a breaking through, an arrival.

Before you were born, you were an egg in your mom who was an egg in her mom.

Before you were born, you were a nested Russian doll of possibility in your mom's ovaries. You were two halves of a million different

possibilities, a billion heads or tails, flip shine on spun coin. Before you were born, you were the idea to make it to California for gold or bust.

You were white, you were brown, you were red, you were dust.

You were hiding, you were seeking.

Before you were born, you were chased, beaten, broken, trapped in Oklahoma.

Before you were born, you were an idea your mom got into her head in the 70s to hitchhike across the country and become a dancer in New York.

You were on your way when she did not make it across the country but sputtered and spiraled and landed in Taos, New Mexico,

at a peyote commune called Morning Star.

Before you were born,

you were your dad's decision to move away from Oklahoma

to northern New Mexico,

to learn about a Pueblo guy's fireplace. You were the light and the

wet of your parents' eyes as they met across that fireplace in ceremony. Before you were

born, your halves inside them moved to Oakland. Before you were born, before your body was much more

...