Victor Lodato Reads “Herman Melville, Volume I”
The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2017
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
He pushes her against a tree, and even though his hand is somewhere else, the girl feels it on her throat. She can’t speak. She only squeaks. A shadow falls, as if to give them privacy. The man takes full advantage. “Get the fuck away from her.”There’s a sudden cracking sound, and the man whelps.
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| 0:00.0 | This is The Writer's Voice, New Fiction from The New Yorker. |
| 0:09.6 | I'm Deborah Treasman, Fiction Editor at The New Yorker. |
| 0:12.8 | On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Victor LaDotto read his story, Herman |
| 0:17.6 | Malville, Volume 1, from the March 27th, 2017 issue of the magazine. |
| 0:23.7 | LaDotto is a playwright and fiction writer. His second novel, Edgar and Lucy, was published this month. |
| 0:28.9 | This is his third story in The New Yorker. Now here's Victor LaDotto. |
| 0:40.4 | Herman Melville, Volume 1 She's carrying two skateboards, two backpacks, the banjo in its scratched-up case, |
| 0:48.5 | a husk of molded leather that's always looked to her like a giant key, |
| 0:53.0 | but now seems more like a coffin. Maybe because |
| 0:56.1 | she hasn't played in weeks. This time of year, people don't stop. The coins in their pockets |
| 1:02.1 | stay there. Are you too good for 50 cents? Evan had scolded her. If Evan had his way, she'd be |
| 1:10.1 | playing every day. He doesn't understand how much it takes |
| 1:14.0 | to stand in front of strangers and summon up songs she learned as a child. Especially on dark |
| 1:20.6 | afternoons, with the mist spitting in her face like some pissed-off ghost, she refuses to play |
| 1:26.6 | under such conditions. Anyway, she refuses to play under such conditions. |
| 1:29.1 | Anyway, she wants to protect the instrument. |
| 1:32.2 | The pretty cherry wood, the feathery carving on the neck. |
| 1:35.9 | It's the only fine thing she has. |
| 1:38.2 | Why ruin it? |
| 1:39.6 | Her father, it said, never get it wet. |
| 1:42.1 | Treat it wrong and it would get sick, same as anything. |
| 1:46.0 | So she'd let it sleep for a bit. The case was comfy, lined with velvet. |
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