This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from The New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah 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 The piano tuner's wives by William Trevor,

which appeared in the New Yorker in October of 1995. Violet married a piano tuner when he was a young man.

Bell married him when he was old. There was a little more to it than that, because in choosing

Violet to be his wife, the piano tuner had rejected Bell.

The story was chosen by Yian Lee, who's the author of eight books of fiction, including the novel

The Book of Goose, and the story collection Wednesday's Child, which was a finalist for the

Pulitzer Prize in 2024.

Hi, Yian.

Hi, Deborah. Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

So you've always had a really strong connection with William Trevor's work.

Why do you think that is?

Well, personally, I learned writing by reading his fiction, so I always considered him a mentor on the page.

And then later, I made friends with him and I learned a lot from him just by observing him.

So I'm always very fun of his work.

How did you befriend him?

I wrote a fan letter.

After my first collection, I think it won a prize in Ireland, and he was on a short list.

So I just felt very bad and honored.

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