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 Tony Early read his story Backpack from the November 5th, 2018 issue of the magazine.

Early is the author of five books, 2018 issue of the magazine.

Early is the author of five books, including the story collection Mr. Tall, and the novel's Jim the Boy and the Blue Star. Now here's Tony Early.

Backpack. John told the salesman at a Home Depot in Durham that the chain was for a port swing,

the concrete block for a step to the utility building in his backyard. The backpack and sleeping

bag he purchased without explanation at an REI in Raleigh, the inflatable plastic raft, foot pump,

and two-piece paddle at Walmart.

He made up the name Jimmy Ray Gallup, and, at a Goodwill in Mebben, picked out a hoodie,

a navy t-shirt, work pants, and boot that Jimmy Ray Gallup would wear.

He bought the toolbox and three padlocks from an Ace hardware in Pittsburgh.

He paid cash for everything and threw the receipts away in trash cans outside the stores. He bought nothing in Chapel Hill.

The gun, and H&R 38, had been his grandfathers. Because Charlotte hated guns, he hadn't told her

while they were dating that he owned one.

Telling her after they got married would have made him seem dishonest,

and telling her after Carly was born would have cost him his ass.

So he hadn't told her.

They had been married 29 years.

Carly was now finishing a PhD in particle physics

at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

For the past 20 years,

...