This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Zadie Smith read her story,

Crazy They Call Me, from the March 6th, 2017 issue of the magazine.

Smith is the author of five novels, including White Teeth, N.W. and Swingtime, which was published

last year. Now here's Sadie Smith.

Well, you certainly don't go out any place less than dressed, not these days.

Can let anybody mistake you for that broken, misused little girl, Eleanor Fagan?

No, let there be no confusion, not in the audience or in your old man, in the matrily or the floor manager.

The cops are the goddamn agents of the goddamn IRS. You always have your fur, present and correct,

hanging off your shoulders just so. Take back your me, take back your pearls.

But you don't sing that song, it's not in your key.

Let some other girls sing it.

The type who gets a smile from a cop,

even if she's crossing Broadway in her oldest Terrellene house dress.

You don't have that luxury.

Besides, you love that mink.

Makes the state of things clear.

In fact, though many aren't hip to this yet, not only is there no more Eleanor, there isn't any Billy either. There is only

Lady Day. Alligator bag, three rows of diamonds nice and thick on your wrist. Never mind that

it's three o'clock in the afternoon. You boil an egg in twin set and pearls.

They got you hold up in Newark for the length of this engagement.

...