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Selected Shorts

Too Hot For Radio: Erin Somers "Ten Year Affair"

Selected Shorts

Symphony Space

Arts, Fiction, Books, Society & Culture

4.42.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Actress Holly Hunter reads Erin Somer's short story "Ten Year Affair."

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi Ho! Hotheads! This is a pardon in Sherlock, back again with stories that would make public

0:13.3

radio listeners blush. And hey, today's story is about sex and the multiverse. Sex, I think

0:22.2

you have an idea about birds, drones, flowers, mones, you know. The usual. The multiverse,

0:28.8

well, it's the idea that there are many other universes, perhaps an infinite number of them,

0:35.0

which could contain infinite other versions of you. So there's a universe in which you're

0:40.1

a doctor, or have green hair, or you're a handbag, or maybe you're exactly like you and

0:45.5

have lived the exact same life, but this version of you really loves black licorice for

0:50.8

some reason. Scientists will tell you that the multiverse probably isn't real, yet it's

0:56.1

a crucial plot point in every single Marvel movie. And like the Marvel multiverse, our

1:02.4

story today also has pretty high stakes. It's about marriage and love, and the path not taken.

1:09.0

The story was written by Erin Summers. She has a novel, stay up with Hugo Best, and has been

1:15.5

published in the Paris Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. This particular story, 10-year

1:21.3

affair, was chosen for the best American short stories collection of 2022. Summers writing

1:27.8

is funny and charming, and we start to imagine the stories a gentle fiasco that Lori Moore

1:33.6

and Beatty might indulge. One of those stories of drunken marital strife that would fit right

1:40.1

in at the New Yorker. But this story is not going where you think it's going, which, you

1:46.1

know, that's what we want out of a story. It was read at our night highlighting stories from

1:51.8

that book, and hosted by the Pulitzer-winning Andrew Sean Greer. Reading the story is Holly

1:58.0

Hunter. Yes, that one. She is of course a veteran whose career spans movies, including broadcasts

2:05.7

news and the piano, to recent stories such as succession and Mr. Mayor. Oh, before we get into

2:13.3

it, I need to issue our warning for those with sensitive ears. Warning. To borrow language

2:19.5

from old R-rated movies, this story contains sexual situations. Also the word, Fuckhead, which

...

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