This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Debra Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

This month we're going to hear Katania by Lara Vapnir,

which was published in the New Yorker in October of 2013.

What my family lacked was a father, but a father doll was a true rarity.

Nobody knew how to father doll. Most of the kids I knew didn't even have fathers.

I didn't have a father. Mine died when I was two.

The story was chosen by Waiki Wang, whose first novel, chemistry, won the Penn Hemingway Award in 2018.

Hi Waiki.

Hi Dara, how are you doing?

All right, thanks for joining us.

So when we talked about doing the podcast, Lara Vapnir was your first thought.

Why was that?

First thought.

Neon Sin went off in my head.

I've read the story many times, but this was one of the first stories that

you know, from the magazine that I read, and then it stuck with me for a really long time.

And since then I've read her older stories in the magazine, but also all of her collection,

her novels. I think her most recent one about the rest of her mother.

Right, divide me by zero.

Yeah. It's a great example of being introduced to a very small piece of writer's work,

...