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 a story by the Irish writer, John McGarin.

There was nothing left but his own life.

There had been nothing but that all along.

The story is called The Wine Breath, and it appeared in the magazine in April of 1977.

It was chosen for the podcast by Ian Lee, the author of the novel The Vagrants.

Lee has published several stories in the magazine, as well as a personal history about the Chinese cultural revolution.

She grew up in Beijing, moved to the US in 1996, and currently teaches at the University of California Davis.

She joins us from a studio in Berkeley.

And on McGarin died in 2006, and during his life, he was referred to as the best Irish short story writer since James Joyce.

But he's still not really a household name in the US.

How did you first come across his work?

I run into his books a couple years ago in the bookstore in London, and never heard of the name.

So I picked up a couple novels, and really fell in love with his writing.

So you'd had no idea who he was. You just were attracted by the books?

Right. I think it just serendipity sometimes works in life.

You know, you run into someone or a book.

When we talked about doing the podcast, we talked about a couple of other writers, too,

whom you were interested in reading, and they were William Trevor and VS Pritchett.

I thought it was interesting. There were two Irishmen who lived in England, and an Englishman who lived in Ireland.

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