Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
0:03
Whether you love true crime or comedy,
0:05
celebrity interviews or news, you
0:07
call the shots on what's in your podcast queue.
0:10
And guess what? Now you can call them on
0:12
your auto insurance too with the name your price
0:14
tool from Progressive. It works just the way it
0:16
sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to
0:18
pay for car insurance and they'll show you coverage
0:21
options that fit your budget. Get your quote today
0:23
at progressive.com to join the
0:25
over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.
0:27
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price
0:30
and coverage match limited by state law.
0:38
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the
0:40
New Yorker magazine. I'm Deborah Treisman,
0:42
fiction editor at the New Yorker. Each
0:45
month we invite a writer to choose a story
0:47
from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This
0:50
month we're going to hear likes by
0:52
Sarah Swan-Yen Vynum, which appeared in
0:54
the New Yorker in October of 2017. Even
0:57
to his own ears, he sounded sorry for himself, but
1:00
his daughter, good for her, was not
1:02
thinking about him or his feelings. She
1:05
stared at the elevator doors. You're
1:07
making me feel like I talk too much. She
1:09
whispered furiously, deep in her own
1:12
embarrassment. The story was chosen
1:14
by David Bismoskis, who is the author of
1:16
two novels and two story collections, Natasha
1:18
and Other Stories, which won the Commonwealth Writers
1:21
Prize for Best First Book, and
1:23
Immigrant City, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize
1:25
in 2019. Hi,
1:27
David. Hi, Deborah. Welcome
1:29
back to the show. Thank you. Nice to
1:32
be back. When you were
1:34
deciding what to read today, you
1:36
hesitated between two stories by Sarah
1:38
Swan-Yen Vynum. Can you tell
1:40
me what made you choose likes in the end? And
1:42
also what just makes you a fan of her work
1:44
in general? I guess, you
1:46
know, what made me choose it was kind of
1:49
a sort of
1:51
a superficial reason because they're
1:53
both wonderful stories and she's excellent
1:56
at writing children and
1:58
both of those stories. of future kids
2:01
in one way or another. And
2:03
I just love also how funny she can
2:06
be. There's this
2:08
wonderful sort of wry humor, or sometimes
2:10
more than wry. These
2:12
stories can be very, very funny, which
2:14
I always enjoy. Yeah. What
2:17
do you think she does with the
2:19
lives of children that is unusual? Well,
2:22
it's a good question. I don't know if
2:24
it's unusual, but she's very good at it. It's
2:27
hard to do, right? It's very hard to do. I
2:30
can't think of a thing in writing that is easy to do,
2:33
but it's hard. I think something
2:35
as simple as making them feel
2:37
like real people, not condescending, and
2:40
also giving them kind of a wildness.
2:42
In the other story, the one that
2:45
we're not talking about, the Earl King,
2:47
there's a remarkable, vivid,
2:49
dark fantasy
2:52
world to the child
2:54
that's kind of menacing
2:57
and otherworldly. Sarah
2:59
just does such a remarkable job of making it feel
3:01
real. And
3:03
here, it's also like it's
3:06
intimating the unspoken, the
3:08
things that children don't tell you. And
3:10
she has a way of creating these spaces in
3:12
her stories, because they're stories
3:14
of not just children with children, but they're
3:16
almost always stories of parents and children. And
3:20
so it's like what the parent wants
3:23
to know and can't know. And
3:25
that becomes a feature of it. And that's
3:27
definitely a big part of likes. Right.
3:31
So the story is more
3:33
or less told from the point of view of a father, the
3:35
father of a sixth grader. And
3:38
it involves her Instagram feed, among
3:40
other things. And the story came out almost
3:43
seven years ago. But
3:45
I feel like for parents of tween
3:47
or teenage girls, which both of us
3:50
are, it still
3:52
feels very contemporary. Yeah.
3:54
I mean, that's part of the superficial reason
3:57
for choosing it, The
3:59
fact that. It
4:01
feels very contemporary from Not Respect, which
4:03
is surprising because of how fast we
4:06
feel like technology moves and it feels
4:08
really like nothing has changed in that
4:10
respect. The the other respect is the
4:13
other side of the story because it's
4:15
two things that happen on site. The
4:17
father's following this instagram feed when it's
4:19
a particular moment in time which is
4:22
the Twenty Sixteen election. And
4:24
so these things get fuse
4:26
together in an interesting way.
4:29
They're. Related because of he don't like
4:31
it. will talk about it after I
4:33
suppose. but it's like what is it
4:36
about that election and what is it
4:38
about harm the father's inability to understand
4:40
his daughter. That are sort of common
4:42
elements. Made.
4:44
when facing a similar elections. So
4:47
maybe that's what makes it feel
4:49
even more time. With that say as.of
4:51
the superficial saying that in a way I can
4:53
be the embarrassed to say that as part of
4:55
the reasons for choosing it. but it is remarkable
4:57
to come across a story eight years later practically
4:59
and see that were kind of in the same
5:01
place. Well we will talk for my after
5:04
the story. And now here's David
5:06
This most guess reading likes by far as
5:08
funny and by non. Likes.
5:14
The dad scrolled through his daughters
5:16
Instagram account looking for clues. The.
5:18
Most recent post as a photograph
5:21
of an ice cream cone extravagantly
5:23
large, held up against the white
5:25
off by disembodied hand peppermint stick
5:27
or strawberry. The. Mound
5:29
was starting to melt, a trickle of it,
5:32
inching down the code and drawn dangerously close
5:34
to the thumb. His daughters. The
5:37
next photo was a close up of a shop window.
5:40
Inside the window glowed Pinckney unsigned, spelling
5:42
out the word warm. In
5:44
lower case letters. The. Glowing
5:46
word took up most of the frame. He.
5:49
Was impossible to tell what sort of store at once.
5:52
and other close up. An eraser
5:55
colored rose. it's pedals halfway
5:57
unfurled panorama. The. sky at
5:59
sunset A shot of
6:01
her dog, Bob, curled up like a cinnamon
6:03
bun on the pleated, peachy expanse of her
6:06
bed, and then an earlobe. Was
6:08
that what it was? Soft, rounded,
6:10
partly in shadow. He
6:13
closed his eyes and put down the phone. His
6:16
daughter was nearly twelve, and difficult
6:18
to talk to. Normally,
6:21
she rode the bus home from school, but now
6:24
that she had to do physical therapy twice a week,
6:26
he had been picking her up and taking her to the
6:28
appointments. He felt responsible. These
6:32
problems with her joints, runner's knee,
6:34
Achilles tendonitis, were undoubtedly
6:36
a handicap she'd inherited from his gouty
6:38
side of the family. In
6:41
ballet class, she could no longer do grand
6:43
plies or go up to relevé. In
6:46
the middle of the night, she would wake up in pain.
6:49
He kept a tin of tiger balm on
6:51
her nightstand so that she could find it
6:53
easily in the dark. The
6:56
physical therapist was a young woman dressed as
6:58
an older one in iron slacks and support
7:00
shoes. She had a
7:02
secretive smile and a stiff demeanor. The
7:05
dad didn't always feel comfortable asking her
7:07
questions, but his daughter seemed to like her.
7:10
Hi, Ivy, the therapist would murmur as
7:12
they entered the office, her little smile
7:15
widening, and the two of them would
7:17
disappear into the equipment. From the
7:19
waiting room, the dad could hear the
7:21
whir of the stationary bicycle and
7:23
the sound of their voices, his silent
7:26
companion from the car suddenly talkative.
7:29
It made a kind of music, the wheel
7:31
spinning and her talking. Correction.
7:34
His daughter wasn't entirely silent in the car. She
7:38
sang along to songs on the radio,
7:40
songs patchy with blanked out words that
7:42
she made a point of mouthing but didn't say aloud.
7:46
A billboard might prompt her to ask a question
7:48
like, why is she drinking out
7:50
of a paper bag? Sometimes
7:52
gazing at her phone, she would let out a
7:55
low triumphant hiss. Yes. She
7:58
had gotten every answer right on the Kylo- early-gender
8:00
quiz. Received 74
8:02
likes on her ice-cream photo. Set
8:05
a new personal record on her Snapchat streak
8:07
with Talya. Other days her
8:09
phone lay inert in her lap. Only
8:12
last week she had asked, eyes
8:14
brimming and fixed on the dashboard. Dad,
8:17
can I be homeschooled? Undone,
8:19
he'd answered. Sure.
8:22
After physical therapy in the elevator heading down to
8:24
the parking lot, he gave her a squeeze and
8:27
said, you're quite the conversationalist in
8:29
there. His daughter looked at
8:31
him with alarm. Of course
8:33
it hadn't come out the way he'd wanted it to. I'm
8:36
glad, he tried again, that there's an adult
8:38
you enjoyed talking to. Which was
8:40
true, although it sounded as if he
8:42
meant the opposite. Even to
8:44
his own ears he sounded sorry for himself, but
8:46
his daughter, good for her, was not
8:49
thinking about him or his feelings. She
8:51
stared at the elevator doors. You're
8:53
making me feel like I talk too much, she
8:56
whispered furiously, deep in her
8:58
own embarrassment. New
9:00
Instagram post. Appeeled
9:02
off pair of ballet tights, splayed on the
9:04
white tiles of a bathroom floor. Some
9:08
days his daughter's quietness in the car
9:11
felt blank and mysterious, but some days
9:13
it felt excruciatingly full, like
9:15
an inflamed internal organ about to burst.
9:18
On one such afternoon the dad said carefully,
9:21
I'm not going to look at you. I'm
9:24
not going to say anything. I'm
9:26
just going to keep my eyes on the road. I'm
9:28
going to keep driving, and when you're ready
9:31
you say whatever you want. After
9:33
a moment of silence she said,
9:35
I'm considering it. And then,
9:38
can I curse? He nodded. She
9:41
asked, you won't make any
9:43
noises or have any expressions at all on
9:45
your face. He nodded again. They
9:48
drove for several more minutes. The
9:50
effort was killing him. So
9:53
the dread. He wasn't sure if
9:55
he had the capacity to receive whatever feeling it was
9:57
that she was full of. When
10:00
they were only three blocks from the therapist's
10:02
office, she said to the windshield, I
10:05
have no friends. As he
10:07
eased into the parking lot, she said, and don't
10:09
tell me you were just at Annie's house last
10:11
Friday. I know that's what you're going to say,
10:14
but you can't make me feel better. People only
10:16
hang out with me because there's nobody else around.
10:19
I'm not their friend. She opened
10:21
the car door slowly. I'm their second choice.
10:25
She heaved her backpack off the floor while
10:28
he stayed behind the wheel, noticing
10:30
his breath and absorbing the punch in various parts
10:32
of his body. Why hadn't she
10:34
cursed? New post. A
10:38
hamburger with lettuce and thousand island dressing,
10:40
cut in half, cooked medium rare. The
10:44
physical therapist recommended a series of exercises to
10:46
do at home. Some, like
10:48
the calf raises, were straightforward, but
10:51
others had names such as Clam. Studying
10:54
the printout with its unhelpful black and
10:56
white drawings, the dad asked, you
10:59
understand what all of this means? Fire
11:02
hydrant, dipping bird, short bridge,
11:04
clock. His daughter didn't
11:06
glance up from her phone. Uh-huh. He
11:09
stuck the paper to the refrigerator with a magnet.
11:12
It looked somewhat quaint there. All
11:14
her handouts from school were now distributed
11:16
digitally for environmental reasons. You
11:19
know you're supposed to be doing these every night. No
11:21
answer. Marooned on one side
11:24
of the island, he wondered, not for the first
11:26
time, if open concept was
11:28
such a great thing after all. Was
11:31
she in the kitchen, talking with him,
11:33
or was she in the family room, on the sofa,
11:36
with her phone, unclear? Without
11:39
untying the laces, she scraped
11:41
off her sneakers, toed a heel, two
11:44
consecutive funks. Your
11:46
progress depends on it. You know that, right? Elegantly,
11:49
she lifted her long legs up and out
11:51
of sight. Ivy? She
11:53
sank beneath the horizon of the sofa. Hello?
11:57
Guess what? Her only homework was to watch.
12:00
TV. This was what
12:02
his daughter announced when he picked her up from
12:04
ballet class. In a series
12:06
of texts, he and his wife agreed that they
12:08
would order ramen and watch
12:10
the presidential debate as a family. And
12:13
though it took them a while to get
12:15
started, the restaurant had sent only one spicy
12:17
instead of two, and when they sat down
12:19
on the sofa, Bob kept jumping into their
12:21
laps and had to be crated. Once
12:24
they finally organized themselves, with their drinks
12:26
and their bowls and their napkins and
12:29
their chopsticks, it felt warm
12:31
and momentous being there together in front of
12:33
the television. Dorothy muttered
12:35
encouragement at the moderator. Keep
12:37
at him, she said, bent over her noodles.
12:39
Keep the pressure on. As
12:42
long as Dorothy was leaning forward, he could now
12:44
and then steal a sideways glance at his daughter.
12:47
She appeared to be paying attention, her
12:49
eyes slightly widened, and her bowls
12:51
sitting neglected on the coffee table. Then
12:54
suddenly she leaped off the sofa and
12:56
ran upstairs. You all right? he called.
12:59
Ivy? It's making me
13:01
uncomfortable, she yelled from the top of the
13:04
staircase. He could picture
13:06
her standing there, one foot raised, ready to
13:08
flee. Tell me when this part is over,
13:10
okay? He
13:12
wanted to share a commiserating look with Dorothy, but
13:14
she was still watching the screen, sawing
13:17
her little pendant back and forth on its chain.
13:20
So much for current events, he said.
13:23
His daughter had a pretty collection of pens
13:25
and pencils, a tiny roll
13:27
of tape, a pink pocket stapler, and
13:30
a packet of candy-colored paper clips. All
13:33
these items lived inside a sleek gold
13:35
pouch with a zipper and
13:38
were brought out into the open when she was doing
13:40
her homework at the kitchen table. Her
13:42
tapered fingers danced over them in search
13:44
of the right highlighter. Her
13:47
fingernails sparkled, her school supplies
13:49
sparkled. She had affixed
13:51
very small puffy stickers in
13:54
specific places to her notebooks
13:56
and binders. Watching
13:58
her at work, he realized with pride that
14:00
his daughter would have been one of those girls
14:03
who intimidated him when he was that age. When
14:07
he was that age, a slight prickling,
14:10
like sensation, restoring itself to a
14:12
numb hand was his old
14:14
self considering a return. To
14:17
his surprise, he had trouble recalling his
14:19
thoughts and emotions from sixth grade. Surprising
14:22
because he remembered the fact of having
14:24
felt things, he was
14:26
the point at which his parents took to calling him
14:29
Heathcliff. There were
14:31
a few standouts, to be sure, the
14:33
memory of being lifted into the air and carried
14:35
on a gurney, after he had
14:37
badly sprained his ankle on the basketball court,
14:40
and noticing how far away the ceiling of the gym
14:42
appeared, and the menacing pattern of
14:44
the rafters. But in terms
14:47
of day-to-day twelve-year-old feelings, he
14:49
had strangely lost access. And
14:52
the access needed to be only temporary. All
14:55
he wanted was a point of comparison. Was
14:58
what she was going through normal. In
15:01
the afternoons he held his breath, never
15:03
knowing which girl was going to climb into the
15:05
passenger seat. The happy one,
15:07
braces flashing, asking if they
15:10
could make a really quick stop at Baskin-Robbins,
15:12
or the other one, the one in pain. Had
15:16
he ever felt that way too? If only
15:18
he could remember. All that came
15:20
to him were the first and last names,
15:22
in no particular order, of every kid in
15:24
his homeroom. Stephen Burke,
15:26
Tracy Mason, Derek Wong,
15:29
Billy Flanagan, Don Littlejohn,
15:31
Josh Dachovsky, Luke
15:34
Mandel, Raffi Moncho, Danielle
15:36
Blun. And
15:38
sometimes, along with the names, the faces would
15:40
materialize, like mugshots. New
15:43
Post. A pair of lips,
15:46
shining wetly. Try
15:48
not to internalize. Dorothy whispered to
15:50
him, taking his hand as they waited
15:52
in the dank hallway outside the Nutcracker
15:55
auditions. Practice wearing
15:57
a neutral expression. for
16:00
a while, trying to hear what was going
16:02
on behind the closed doors. When
16:04
their daughter finally exited, looking
16:06
a little dazed, they gently shepherded her
16:08
to the car. Did she want
16:10
lunch? Starbucks? If
16:13
it's okay, I think I'd just like to
16:15
go home and watch YouTube, she said quietly.
16:19
From the depths of the sofa, a now familiar
16:21
voice bubbled. Hi guys, I'm back,
16:24
and I'm so excited because today I'm going
16:26
to be talking about room decor. And
16:28
as you guys know, I love being creative when
16:31
it comes to doing DIY decor. But
16:33
today is extra special because I'm going
16:35
to be showing you my mini Home
16:37
Goods haul. I got so
16:39
many amazing things, but I think the thing
16:41
that I love the most is this incredibly
16:44
fluffy pillow. As you can
16:46
see, it's huge, and I'm pretty sure it's
16:48
real sheepskin. Yeah, it says
16:50
here 100% wool from New Zealand, but
16:52
don't worry, no sheep were killed or
16:54
anything. I don't think so, right? They'll
16:57
just grow back. But the best part
16:59
is how good it goes with these other decorative pillows I
17:01
got at Home Goods. That place is
17:03
so amazing. Their selection is always
17:06
changing. I went in thinking
17:08
I needed picture frames and a dog bed,
17:10
but then I turned down this one aisle
17:12
and I saw the pillows and I went
17:14
crazy. By
17:17
nightfall, his daughters seemed to have revived.
17:19
She practiced her jazz turns on the slick floor
17:21
of the kitchen. She winked
17:24
and dimpled at her reflection in the sliding
17:26
doors. As if for an audience
17:28
stretching into the darkened backyard. The
17:30
dad, rinsing dishes in the sink, had to
17:32
keep dodging her left foot, which she kicked
17:35
without warning, eye into the air. She
17:37
always kicked on that side. It was naturally
17:40
the more flexible of the two. To
17:42
the dad, it would have made more sense to
17:44
practice kicking on the less stretchy side. I
17:47
am the best, she sang tunelessly. The
17:49
best, the best, the best. You can't
17:51
beat me, no you can't. Don't even
17:53
try, because I'm the best. The
17:56
song sounded as if it had been made up on
17:58
the spot. Later
18:00
that week the physical therapist came into the waiting
18:02
room while his daughter was still whirring away on
18:04
the bicycle. For a moment he
18:06
thought she was there to grab a magazine, but
18:08
then she perched on the chair beside him
18:10
and started speaking. I'm wondering,
18:13
she said, wearing her small, formal
18:15
smile, if Ivy has been
18:17
keeping up with her exercises at home. His
18:20
chest began to tingle, the Ivy
18:22
vice squeezing. She wasn't improving.
18:25
She wasn't going to get a decent part in the nutcracker.
18:28
She'd have to spend a second year in the Angel
18:30
Corps, shuffling across the stage
18:32
in the snowflake scene while holding
18:34
a battery-operated candle from Home Depot.
18:37
He felt totally defeated. I think
18:39
she has, he said. I've been telling her to. Then
18:43
he admitted, but I really don't know. To
18:45
his shame he heard himself adding somewhat
18:48
faucally. Maybe you should ask her. Another
18:52
not-great day at school, his daughter buried her
18:54
chin and mouth into the folds of her
18:56
scarf and stared, unseeing at the road, not
18:59
bothering to change the radio station. The
19:01
election coverage continued unchecked in the background.
19:05
Beyond the windshield, a vapor trail bisected the
19:07
blue sky. Closer to
19:09
the ground, block after block of
19:12
residential development streamed past. As
19:15
they merged onto the highway, she asked, do
19:17
you think I cried too much? He
19:20
sat with the question for a handful of seconds and
19:23
then inquired evenly. Who told you
19:25
that? Once you didn't answer,
19:27
he asked, a little less evenly,
19:29
who said that bullshit to you? Also,
19:33
when did it become a crime to feel
19:35
things? She
19:38
retreated deeper into her scarf. Oh, God, Dad,
19:40
forget I asked. It doesn't matter. And
19:43
he glanced down at the insulated cup, resting
19:45
in the holder between them. That
19:47
fucking coffee. He'd been suckered
19:50
by the promised ease of drive-through and ended
19:52
up arriving ten minutes late for pickup. Only
19:55
ten minutes. Not even a quarter of
19:57
an hour, but long enough for someone to have said
19:59
something awful to her. If that,
20:01
indeed, was what had happened, who
20:04
knew what really went on in the
20:06
cluster of low-slung buildings that she disappeared
20:08
into and emerged from every day? He
20:12
had the urge to carry her far away from
20:14
them as far as possible. The
20:16
value of peer interaction was
20:18
definitely overstated. He could
20:20
fill the tank, surprise Dorothy at work, load
20:23
the trunk with nonperishable groceries and
20:26
supplies, and then it would be just
20:28
the three of them, the open road. Not
20:31
like free spirits exactly, more like refugees from
20:33
the zombie apocalypse, but still, they'd
20:35
be together. Plus Bob. He'd
20:38
almost forgotten the
20:40
dog. New post. A cupcake, frosted
20:42
to look like the face of a cute pig. In
20:46
late October, unexpectedly, a stretch of
20:48
sunshine. First off, she'd
20:50
been cast as a dragon dancer in the
20:52
Chinese tea scene, and even though only
20:55
the lower half of her would be visible, she
20:57
was coming home from the rehearsals in high
21:00
spirits, which she attributed to
21:02
teamwork, telling him, you see, it is
21:04
like playing a sport. And
21:07
then, in the space of a few
21:09
days, an e-vite to a disco-themed murder
21:11
mystery party. An afternoon
21:13
working with her partner on a social
21:15
studies project that turned into a
21:17
movie night and a sleepover. A
21:20
plan to go with three girls from her Girl
21:22
Scout troop to the outlet mall. The
21:25
dad stood on the front walkway and watched
21:27
her slide into the backseat of the troop
21:29
mother's minivan. As it pulled away
21:32
from the curb, he waved to
21:34
the shadowy parent behind the wheel. Their neighbor,
21:36
Marcia, happened to be dragging in
21:38
her trash cans. He waved at her, too. I
21:41
can't believe how big she's getting, Marcia called. Tell
21:44
me about it, he said. Always
21:46
running off somewhere, I can't keep up. He
21:49
knew he sounded like an ass, but he
21:51
couldn't help it. He floated up
21:53
the walkway and in through the front door,
21:55
and finding Dorothy upstairs shaking out the bed
21:58
covers, he hugged her from behind. made
22:00
her topple over. On
22:04
Tuesday the physical therapist greeted them as usual.
22:06
High ivy, she said, through her little smile,
22:09
as if he were merely the hulking,
22:11
nameless attendant who traveled alongside the patient.
22:14
But today it didn't bother him, because right away
22:16
he saw that she had done her duty and
22:18
voted. He pointed
22:20
to the oblong sticker on the breast
22:22
pocket of her gray, grown-up-looking blouse, and
22:25
then pointed to the same sticker attached to his
22:27
own chest. Earlier he
22:30
had debated whether he should wait until after school
22:32
and take his daughter with him. It'd
22:34
be something that she could tell her daughter about
22:36
had been his thinking. But
22:38
then he remembered that she had therapy, and
22:40
during his lunch hour went ahead, on his
22:42
own, to the polling station, which
22:45
was in the cavernous basement of an Armenian
22:47
church. After pointing
22:49
to their matching stickers, he gave the
22:51
physical therapist a grin and a thumbs-up.
22:54
Uncharacteristically, she returned the gesture
22:56
with open enthusiasm. Ho-ho!
23:00
Maybe he'd stumbled upon the best way to communicate
23:02
with her, through hand signals. He
23:06
swelled suddenly with positive feelings for her. This
23:08
competent young woman, who was helping his
23:11
daughter, those nice Armenian congregants who volunteered
23:13
for long shifts at the polls, the
23:16
sensible, civic-minded men and women who patiently
23:18
waited with him, giving up their lunch
23:20
hours as he had. He
23:23
felt good about them. He felt
23:25
good about humanity in general. Basic
23:27
decency would prevail, and this exhausting,
23:29
insane election season would soon be
23:31
over, and by tomorrow, he
23:34
could commit his energies fully to planning
23:36
the Thanksgiving menu and making sure that
23:38
his daughter did her fire hydrants every
23:40
night and got better. New
23:43
post. The Black Square. Not
23:45
a photo of a black square, but a photo
23:48
of total blackness, as if the
23:50
camera had misfired or the film had
23:52
been accidentally exposed. The
23:55
whole family had a hard time getting up the next morning. Dad
23:58
felt as if he had been run over by a truck. The
24:00
big, shiny pickup truck that had
24:02
come swerving out of the darkness and mowed him
24:05
down and now had backed up and was waiting
24:07
for him, its engine revving. His
24:09
daughter crouched by his pillow and asked, as
24:11
she often did, to have
24:13
to go to school today. Her eyes
24:15
had turned narrow from crying, then sleeping. Her
24:18
nightshirt had a silvery unicorn on it.
24:22
They had let her stay up to watch the results with them, and
24:24
even in the dim light she looked haggard. She
24:27
said, placing the pillow over his head,
24:29
go back to sleep. It was what he
24:31
intended to do. He had a
24:33
very small window, in which he
24:35
could slip back into unconsciousness and then wake up
24:37
in a world where the election hadn't happened. He
24:40
tried the trick he developed after
24:42
the first of several basketball injuries, the
24:45
trick where he would slow his breathing and
24:48
lie perfectly still, and
24:50
the throbbing in his ankle would cease, and
24:53
he could fool himself into believing that
24:55
he was strong and well before finally
24:57
relaxing into sleep. He
24:59
imagined himself in his old bedroom, on
25:02
his narrow bed, wearing nothing but
25:04
his sultic shorts. He repeated
25:06
to himself, fit as a fiddle, fit
25:08
as a fiddle. But he
25:10
was agonizingly awake. Dorothy's
25:13
body heat beside him was throwing him off. He
25:15
pushed away the pillow inside and
25:17
was startled to see his daughter standing in
25:19
the doorway, fully dressed, with her backpack on.
25:22
What are you doing? he groaned. Why
25:24
aren't you in bed? She took
25:26
a nervous step backward. Daddy, she said,
25:29
I thought you were joking. Life
25:33
was a subject on which his daughter
25:35
collected inspirational quotes, her favorite, "'Life
25:38
always offers you a second chance.
25:40
It's called tomorrow.'" Served
25:43
as the bio on her Instagram profile. If
25:46
asked to describe herself, she
25:48
invariably said either fantabulous or
25:50
optimistic. Among
25:52
the many items on the third draft of
25:54
her Christmas list was something called a happiness
25:57
planner, a daily journal designed,
25:59
she explained. to create positive
26:01
thinking and personal growth. Christmas
26:04
was well over a month away, though
26:06
nearly all the houses on the block already had
26:08
their lights up. On
26:10
a cold morning the Dad sank into the driver's
26:12
seat, and in a fog he backed the car
26:15
down the driveway and into the
26:17
street before he became aware of a painted wooden
26:19
sign on top of the dashboard. It
26:22
was long and thin, with a black
26:24
background and italicized gold lettering. The
26:27
paint had been deliberately rubbed away from the
26:29
sign's edges to make it look like an
26:32
heirloom that had once hung in an ancestor's
26:34
homestead. Usually the
26:36
sign hung on the wall above his daughter's bed,
26:38
for the most part unnoticed by him. But
26:41
now, looking at it closely, he
26:43
saw that its syntax was slightly garbled.
26:46
It read, Life is always offered
26:48
a second chance. It's called tomorrow.
26:52
Not as bad as what he'd seen in
26:54
some instruction manuals, but still off, and
26:56
annoyingly so considering that the words were the
26:58
whole point. He
27:00
flipped over the sign to confirm his
27:02
suspicions about where it had been manufactured.
27:04
Proudly made in Michigan, USA, the sticker
27:07
said. He didn't know why
27:09
he bothered feeling surprised anymore. He
27:11
tossed the sign into the backseat, face down.
27:15
It struck him as darkly symbolic as so
27:17
many things did these days. In
27:19
personal life, marching on, taking
27:22
for itself all the tomorrows you had
27:24
squandered. And don't get
27:26
him started on Michigan. How
27:28
did the unintelligible thing even end up on his
27:30
dashboard? You'd have to remind Ivy
27:32
to take it up to her room, or
27:35
else it would remain in the back of his car for months.
27:39
Do you realize how Snapchat works? Dorothy
27:42
asked him, her face lit up in the dark by
27:44
her laptop. That it just
27:46
disappears, the photos they send each other. And
27:49
that they can write captions on them. Then
27:52
it all goes poof. Like in five
27:54
seconds it's gone. So there's no way
27:56
of knowing what they're receiving or putting out there.
27:59
What images and messages. they're being exposed to.
28:01
There's no way to monitor any of it because
28:04
it vanishes." She clicked
28:06
on her trackpad. "'Hey, do you know
28:08
about this?'" He rolled toward
28:10
her and grunted. Uh-huh.
28:13
With his mouth guardian, he wasn't easy to
28:15
enunciate. She reached over to
28:17
the nightstand and then dropped the neoprene eye
28:19
mask onto his face, saying, "'I think I'm going
28:22
to be up for a little while.'" He
28:25
heaved himself back onto his more comfortable side,
28:27
the side with the good shoulder, and
28:30
pulled the mask down over his eyes. Everything
28:32
disappeared. There was something
28:35
about being suddenly swaddled in darkness that
28:37
made each of her clicks seem slightly
28:39
louder than the one before, as
28:41
if the source of the sound were coming
28:43
very slowly, closer. The
28:48
next morning Dorothy returned from her run
28:50
bearing a stack of newspapers in her
28:52
arms, somewhat tentatively, like she was carrying
28:54
someone else's baby. She
28:56
dropped it heavily onto the island. "'Since
28:59
when do we subscribe to The Guardian?' she asked, and
29:01
the New York Times." The
29:03
dad looked up from his phone in confusion. He
29:06
did recall making a few late-night donations
29:08
to the NRDC and the Southern Poverty
29:10
Law Center, but he'd forgotten all
29:12
about the newspapers. "'You know, there's
29:15
this thing called a digital subscription,' she remarked
29:17
as she opened the refrigerator. He moved
29:19
out of her way. "'That's what I
29:21
did with the Washington Post,' he said, remembering
29:23
now, because they don't deliver outside the DC
29:25
area. "'In a week, this
29:27
place is going to look like a hoarder's
29:29
house,' Dorothy predicted. Piles of
29:32
newspaper everywhere. "'I just
29:34
think it's important to model,' the dad said, looking
29:36
meaningfully in the direction of the sofa. "'Model
29:39
where we get our information from.' He
29:41
half expected his daughter's head to pop
29:43
up like a groundhog's at the mention
29:45
of model. Kendall Jenner? Gigi
29:48
Hadid? "'No, not that kind
29:50
of model,' he heard himself saying, wearily over
29:52
a laugh track. Dorothy
29:54
handed him a glass of juice. "'Stop looking
29:57
so pious,' she said. "'I agree with you.'"
30:00
New Post A hand holding
30:02
a clear plastic Starbucks cup, filled with
30:05
a liquid the color of Pepto-Bismol. In
30:08
it floated small chunks of something red.
30:11
Do you think this was full of caffeine, Dorothy
30:13
asked, her screen tilted in his direction. So
30:16
they'd made a reservation, their table wasn't ready. They
30:19
stood wedged into the little area by the
30:22
door where umbrellas would have gone, if it
30:24
had been raining. Who knows what
30:26
they actually put in their drinks? The
30:28
door opened, the air was cold, and
30:30
they squeezed closer together to let the
30:32
new arrivals through. Well,
30:35
she gets points for consistency, I'll give her
30:37
that, Dorothy murmured, as she
30:39
continued thumbing her phone. She
30:41
was really thinking about her palette. Her
30:44
palette? That was how he
30:46
heard it, palette like where Joan of Arc would have
30:48
slept. On her Instagram it's pink.
30:51
Her palette is a mix of light pink and
30:53
hot pink. He still didn't understand
30:55
what she was talking about. With
30:57
the occasional salmon accent thrown in, he
31:00
blinked angrily. Dorothy had downloaded
31:02
the app only a week ago. What
31:05
about the picture of Michelle Obama, he asked. She's
31:07
not pink. Her dresses,
31:09
his wife smiled at him. At
31:12
this point the hostess looked up from her
31:14
station and signaled for them to approach. The
31:16
noise of the restaurant rose up around them, and
31:19
for a moment he felt enfolded by the warm
31:21
lighting and the voices and the smell of food
31:23
being thoughtfully prepared, but none of it
31:25
gave him any pleasure. As soon
31:28
as they were seated, he ordered wine
31:30
for both of them, and in a
31:32
little bout of resentment told Dorothy that
31:34
a pink palette struck him as depressingly
31:36
cliched. Ivy was just
31:38
imitating what she saw other girls doing online, carefully
31:41
styled shots of donuts and
31:43
videos of dissolving bath bombs.
31:46
Groupthink, he said. She kept
31:48
talking about her personal style and her
31:50
vibe and her aesthetic, but
31:52
nothing about it was actually hers. The
31:55
photo of her hand holding the pink drink
31:57
from Starbucks? He'd seen
31:59
practice. practically the same image posted a hundred times
32:02
before. His
32:04
wife reached out and touched the arm of the passing server.
32:06
Can we get a new fork, please? Accidentally,
32:08
he had knocked his off the table. I
32:13
know you don't like it when I talk about YouTubers,
32:15
but can I tell you just this one thing? What
32:18
makes Ashley Janine different from a lot
32:20
of other YouTubers is that she's really
32:22
honest with her fans. She'll
32:25
come right out and say who's sponsoring her. She
32:27
doesn't try to hide it or make it seem
32:29
like it's just a coincidence that she uses Simple
32:32
and Clinique. She'll say, I'm so
32:34
excited to be working with these brands. And
32:37
also, she's grateful. She
32:39
says all the time how blessed she is
32:41
because she knows it's not usual for a
32:43
23-year-old to be buying her first house
32:46
and have it be so big. She's
32:48
buying a house with a pool. Wow,
32:50
he says, her own pool. She's
32:52
already moved in. Tomorrow, she's going to Lowe's to buy
32:54
house plants. What's Simple? Let's
32:57
see what Clinique was. It's a makeup
32:59
remover, like cleansing facial wipes. They
33:02
don't use artificial perfumes or harsh chemicals, so
33:04
it won't upset your skin. She
33:07
bought a house by using cleansing wipes. She
33:09
has a lot of other sponsors, not just Simple. Plus,
33:12
she's writing a YA novel, so she gets money
33:14
from that too. He didn't know
33:16
how to continue the conversation. Accelerating,
33:18
he made it through a yellow light. Dad,
33:21
his daughter said, after a minute or
33:23
two, when Ashley's book comes out, can
33:25
I get it? He must
33:28
have looked ill-disposed, or maybe he just looked
33:30
ill, because then she said
33:32
jovially, come on, it's reading. But
33:35
could it really be called reading? Did it
33:37
actually count as a book, or
33:39
was it just something amazing? Something
33:43
to be so excited about, to be
33:45
so grateful for? I hope
33:47
you guys enjoyed it. I had so much fun
33:49
doing it, and if you want me to do
33:51
more things like this, make sure to give it
33:53
a big thumbs up and comment down below. And
33:56
don't forget to subscribe to my vlog
33:58
channel, which just got a can of
34:00
water. believe it, 2 million subscribers, because
34:02
there you can see all the behind
34:04
the scenes. So yeah, thank
34:07
you for watching, and I love
34:09
you guys so, so, so much.
34:12
In fact, would it be going
34:14
too far to call it tremendous? Something
34:17
incredible, a massive story, and
34:19
very complex, made by some really
34:22
incredible people of such incredible talent.
34:24
It'll be a big win. There's
34:26
no question about it, and I
34:28
can tell you why. Because, number
34:31
one, the enthusiasm. The enthusiasm
34:33
for this, it is really
34:36
tremendous. Right before the impact,
34:38
he heard his daughter gasp. And
34:40
in the silence afterward, he felt her
34:42
chest rising and falling rapidly against his
34:45
outstretched arm. New
34:48
post. A bared collarbone
34:50
with a seat belt burn running diagonally
34:52
across it. The welt shiny
34:54
with ointment and pink. During
34:59
the intermission of the Nutcracker, he was startled
35:01
to see the physical therapist standing in line
35:03
for the ladies room. She was holding a
35:05
potted orchid from Trader Joe's and
35:08
wearing a velvet blazer. You came, he
35:10
said, a little too loudly. He
35:12
glanced around to see if maybe she had brought a date. She
35:15
asked him, is this Ivy's mom? And
35:17
he remembered to introduce Dorothy, who
35:19
promptly apologized for the length and
35:22
overall cadium of the production. But
35:24
I'm enjoying it, the therapist protested. She
35:28
complimented the girl who danced Arabian coffee
35:30
and also the Chinese dragon dancers who
35:32
had succeeded, the dad admitted, in bringing
35:35
a sort of unruly street energy to
35:37
the show. Ivy was wonderful,
35:39
she said, and together he endorsed, he
35:41
smiled. Like you could really tell, he
35:43
said. She looked at him seriously.
35:46
I would know those legs anywhere. Overpronation
35:48
of the feet, well-developed gastrocnemius,
35:51
she was third from the back.
35:54
The confidence with which she said
35:56
it moved him unexpectedly. He
35:58
wished he could say he knew anything but the that well. He
36:01
thought of all the time she had spent working with
36:03
his daughter deep in the forest of equipment, two
36:06
times a week for nearly three months, not
36:08
only a licensed professional but an expert
36:10
in her field. And here
36:12
she was, on her day off. It
36:15
was a therapist who was smiling now. Don't
36:18
look like that, Dave, she said. It's not magic
36:20
or anything. It's just my job. He began
36:23
smiling, too, to show that he,
36:25
of course, understood, but judging
36:27
from the expression on her face and on
36:29
Dorothy's, it was very possible that his eyes
36:32
were also leaking a little. The
36:34
likelihood made him smile even more, that
36:37
and the fact that, well, what do you know?
36:40
She did remember his name, after all. A
36:43
week after the performance, he came home late from work,
36:46
and when he pulled the rental car into the driveway,
36:48
he saw his daughter sitting at the dining room table.
36:51
She was framed photogenically by
36:54
the room's picture window. For a moment, he
36:56
felt the vice in his chest tightening. Why
36:59
was she alone on a Friday night? Why
37:01
hadn't Dorothy set up a sleepover for her? Why
37:04
hadn't anyone invited her to their house? But
37:07
as he climbed out of the car,
37:09
he saw that she appeared unperturbed and,
37:12
in fact, rather happy, or at least
37:14
happily occupied. She had
37:16
her earbuds in and was making Christmas cards,
37:18
and the supplies spread out in a glittering
37:20
swathe across the table. When
37:22
she spotted him outside, she immediately yanked
37:24
out her earbuds, pushed back
37:26
her chair, and hurled herself against the
37:29
picture window, landing with a
37:31
soft thud. Her cheek lay
37:33
smushed against the glass, her arms were
37:35
splayed, and while she still needed one
37:37
leg to stand on, she'd lifted the
37:39
other and pressed its bent shape to
37:41
the window. What in the world?
37:44
He had no idea what she
37:46
was expressing or rehearsing, but the
37:49
gesture was undoubtedly directed at him.
37:52
What in the darkness he gave her a thumbs up,
37:55
but her eyes were limply shut. Not
37:57
a muscle moved. It was all very realistic.
38:01
Was he witnessing the magic
38:03
of dance, of—what was it
38:05
called when she was little—creative movement?
38:09
Somehow she had managed to convey through her
38:11
body precisely what he had been feeling since
38:13
November, not crushed, not
38:15
flattened, but flung, as
38:18
if from an obliterating blast against
38:20
a hard, exposing surface, spread,
38:23
embarrassed, suspended, without the strength to
38:26
open his eyes and survey the
38:28
damage. He put down
38:30
his computer bag and drew closer to the window.
38:33
He tapped lightly on the pane, but she
38:35
didn't flinch. Pressing
38:37
his palm to hers, he wondered if she
38:39
could feel his outline through the glass. He
38:42
tried it with his other palm and then his cheek.
38:45
He raised and crooked his knee to match the
38:47
angle of her leg. In
38:50
sixth grade theater class he'd had to do
38:52
mirror games, but actually this
38:54
was easier, because now he got
38:56
to choose his partner. What
38:59
was hard was balancing on one foot. When
39:02
he started to wobble, her silent laughter
39:04
made the whole window shake. That
39:10
was David Bismoskis reading Likes by
39:12
Sarah Swenyan Bynum. The
39:14
story appeared in The New Yorker in October of 2017 and
39:17
was included in Bynum's collection Likes, which was
39:19
published in 2020. You
39:25
come to The New Yorker Radio Hour for
39:27
conversations that go deeper with people you
39:30
really want to hear from, whether it's
39:32
Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo,
39:35
Liz Cheney, or the godfather
39:37
of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton,
39:40
or some of my extraordinarily well-informed
39:42
colleagues at The New Yorker. So
39:44
join us every week on The New Yorker Radio
39:47
Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. WNYC
39:52
Studios is supported by Sony Pictures
39:54
Classics, presenting Wicked Little Letters, a
39:56
new mystery comedy based on an
39:58
outrageously true sketch. in the 1920s
40:01
English seaside town residents begin to receive
40:03
wicked letters full of
40:05
unintentionally hilarious profanities prompting a national uproar and
40:09
a criminal investigation. Wicked Little Letters is now playing
40:11
in New York and
40:14
Los Angeles everywhere April 5th only in theaters. David,
40:21
I feel so in a way this is almost
40:23
a mystery story as both the father and the
40:25
reader try
40:29
to understand whether what this girl
40:31
is going through is so-called normal
40:33
tween experience or whether there's something more
40:35
serious or complicated happening with her. Right.
40:38
Do you have an idea about the answer to that question?
40:42
Well, you know, having read it multiple times
40:44
now, I think what's interesting about it is to
40:47
that question specifically this idea of normal, why
40:49
the father is so concerned about his daughter
40:55
why is he so involved? Why
40:57
is it so all-consuming for
40:59
him at this moment in
41:01
time? What
41:04
is it that gives him
41:06
reason to fear that there's anything
41:09
really terrible happening? And
41:13
to me it feels more like if it's
41:15
a mystery, part of it is like, what is wrong with
41:18
him more than what's wrong with her? And
41:21
in a way maybe even like what is wrong with contemporary
41:24
parenting than with this girl? There
41:28
are two parents in this story. One of them
41:31
is much more anxious than the other. And
41:35
maybe in, you know, in
41:38
Sarah's choice of choosing to
41:40
tell it from the dad's
41:42
perspective against
41:48
the person who's most removed from, you
41:50
know, not just the
41:53
experience of being a tween, but also of being a tween girl. I
41:56
mean, he must have, you know, he knew some, but he
41:58
was an adult. never one
42:00
of them. And I
42:02
wonder if the reason that Dorothy isn't
42:04
as freaked out as the dad, whose
42:06
name we ultimately learn, is
42:10
in part because she was once a girl. Right.
42:12
And also they talk more. It
42:15
seems as though what's happened is
42:17
fairly common, which is this girl has
42:19
hit the age where she shuts
42:21
down on her parents, or maybe
42:23
just on her father, you know, where he
42:26
had a little girl who probably talked to him all
42:28
the time, and now she's not talking. And
42:32
that can be devastating for a parent. Yes.
42:35
And I guess we catch him in
42:37
a moment where he, you know,
42:40
he talks about clues. He's
42:42
looking for clues, and he's looking for clues,
42:45
in particularly, you know, from
42:47
her Instagram feed. So
42:50
yeah, it sounds like, you know,
42:52
something had changed. There was,
42:54
you know, a previous Ivy and then
42:57
a new Ivy, and he's trying to
42:59
understand. Yeah.
43:02
The irony of it is trying
43:04
to understand through Instagram, you know,
43:06
what he's looking at is what
43:08
she's choosing
43:10
to present as her
43:12
public persona, perhaps kind
43:14
of aspirational. I mean, how
43:16
much do you think he can find her real
43:18
self there? And
43:21
yet we do it all the time. In
43:23
a way, maybe because it's the public
43:25
persona that she transmits to the
43:27
world that is not meant to be
43:30
her parents. She doesn't think
43:32
about her parents looking at these things.
43:34
She's thinking about her peers, the people
43:36
that she wants to get likes from.
43:39
So I guess he feels like, you
43:41
know, he can't go into the low slung buildings
43:44
and follow her into school. But
43:46
maybe this is the closest he can get to that
43:49
aspect of tween experience.
43:51
It's a curated thing that she's putting
43:53
out there. And ultimately, you know, he
43:56
gets frustrated. On the one
43:58
hand, he wants her to be normal, but he also doesn't want her to
44:00
be cliche,
44:03
which is interesting. Right. Right.
44:06
I was reading an interview with Bynum about
44:09
this story, and she said, these photographs
44:11
offer a window into the daughter's inner
44:14
world that I think is much
44:16
more wild and tangled and rich than
44:18
the medium or the format of Instagram
44:20
itself might suggest. That
44:23
made me sort of stop and think
44:25
because I'd hit everything's pink and
44:27
moved on in a way. What
44:30
wildness do you think you see in
44:33
these photographs that she's put up? I
44:35
don't. I don't.
44:39
I hate to dispute the author,
44:41
but I don't until the
44:46
seat belt one, which is something
44:49
that feels wilder. But
44:52
I also think maybe she does it because something
44:55
has changed in her post-election.
45:00
Right. We
45:02
get the black, the
45:04
all black post, and then she's
45:07
back to pink, but it's a pink wound. It's
45:09
a pink wound. And she's also
45:12
the one image that isn't on
45:15
Instagram, but it's in his car, the
45:18
thing that she used to have above her bed,
45:20
that he doesn't understand how it got in the
45:22
car. But we do. Well, let's
45:24
talk about that. You assume she put it
45:27
there, yeah? Yeah. Yeah,
45:29
she doesn't feel like it's a dark moment
45:31
where it doesn't feel like life is offering
45:33
you a second chance called tomorrow because she
45:35
woke up tomorrow and tomorrow is not good.
45:38
What do you think is going
45:40
on in her mind that makes her
45:42
stick that sign on her father's dashboard?
45:45
I mean, obviously, she's trying to make a point to him.
45:47
It doesn't occur to him that that's what she's doing. It
45:50
didn't occur to me either. It was funny because I
45:52
thought that I liked
45:54
your reading of it better. I thought she was just trying to get rid
45:57
of it. But maybe your reading
45:59
is the better one. that it's the more hopeful
46:01
one, that she's actually reassuring
46:04
him. Or accusing. I
46:06
mean, who knows? Who knows? You know, it
46:08
could go either way. I just think if she wanted
46:11
to get rid of it, she would have put it
46:13
in the garbage can or something. Right. But it seems
46:15
so personalized to put it on her father's dashboard. But
46:18
she's also unaware of
46:20
the garbled syntax. And
46:23
if that's what she meant to do,
46:25
it definitely doesn't have that effect. It
46:28
has the opposite effect. It
46:30
just reinforces his despair. Yeah.
46:33
And reminds him of Michigan. And reminds
46:36
him of Michigan. I
46:39
want to go back to something you brought up earlier.
46:41
The fact that Dorothy and Ivy
46:43
have names from almost
46:46
the beginning of the story. But
46:48
the father, his name doesn't come up
46:51
until very close to the end. And even
46:53
then he's prized that someone has used it,
46:55
that the physical therapist remembers it. And I
46:57
wonder why you think that is? Why he
47:00
goes nameless for so long? There
47:02
are two characters in the story that don't have
47:04
names. Him and the person
47:06
who wins the election. But the physical therapist
47:08
is also never named. It's,
47:11
you know, in thinking about the story, it's
47:14
the dad who we later learn
47:16
is named Dave. He's like
47:18
the only man in the story. And it's a
47:21
story otherwise populated by women. And I wanted to
47:23
have like this great theory where the man is
47:25
not named, but all the women
47:27
are. Well, there's also Bob, the dog. We assume
47:29
Bob is the male dog. It's
47:33
because he doesn't have
47:35
individuality for
47:38
most of the story. And
47:41
I think there's this moment where
47:43
I mean, until then, and there's
47:46
something going on between him and his
47:48
and this physical therapist, which is quite
47:51
tame, but slightly more than
47:53
just tame. What do you
47:55
mean? I think it's he's competitive with a
47:57
physical therapist. Well, I also think he's uncomfortable.
48:00
comfortable around her in some way,
48:02
but also because I
48:04
think he's attracted to her.
48:06
I think that moment where
48:08
he notes that you bring
48:11
a boyfriend, is there somebody with her? It's
48:14
the only relationship
48:16
in the story where
48:20
he's nervous in
48:23
a way that has to do with
48:25
himself, like
48:27
his individual personal
48:29
self. He wants to, I
48:31
don't know, impress her in some way. I
48:36
think in all the other ways he's so neuter,
48:39
right? Like even with his wife he's so neuter.
48:42
Yeah. So for that one moment
48:45
when he has so
48:47
much sort of affection in him to give, so
48:49
he gives her a hug and like knocks her
48:51
over onto the bed. Right. He's
48:54
like, right, but he could have involved the dog the way
48:56
he does it. You know what I mean? Exactly.
49:00
It's like, how do these people
49:02
even copulate to have a child? Like there's
49:05
something that happened to Dave. We
49:08
have an account of him
49:11
when he's a
49:13
teenager playing basketball
49:15
and there's something very physical going on with
49:18
him. He plays basketball, he
49:20
gets hurt. And then most
49:24
of his existence is channeled
49:26
into worrying about his daughter, some
49:28
part of it worrying about the election. But
49:30
as for like him having any desire
49:34
or aspirations or anything
49:36
that is personal in a way, we don't even, like he
49:38
goes to work, we don't know what his job is. We
49:40
don't know what Dorothy's job is either. Yeah.
49:43
I mean, I wondered if he's called the father
49:45
for so long just because that's all he is
49:47
and that's all we're going to get
49:49
of him, is him as a father. And
49:52
that's why I think when the
49:54
therapist says she remembered his
49:57
name, that's Why It's such a thrill
49:59
to him. Because.
50:01
She saw him. You.
50:03
Know even in this. Kind.
50:05
of trivial way. As
50:08
more than just. A
50:10
hulking attendant to the patient. right?
50:13
Like she saw Dave Us as a man,
50:15
Attorney as a person as a person. A
50:17
person with a name and that have that
50:19
kind of affirms him. Like I
50:21
don't know how they've got to be so
50:23
far gone. a discussed this is what he
50:26
needs for it, but I think that's what
50:28
happens like for so much of the story.
50:30
He is just the dad and all his.
50:34
Energy as channeled into mostly his
50:36
daughter. Yeah. And
50:39
yet it's not an entire
50:41
typical generation gap. Story.
50:43
It's not about. There
50:45
being friction caused by a. Being unable
50:48
to understand the experience the child
50:50
you know it's what what seems
50:52
most. Salient me
50:54
here. Is. The
50:57
intensity of his desire to understand.
50:59
You. Know they're not need not yelling at her. You need
51:02
to be. Acting in this
51:04
way, not that way. he's actually the
51:06
Eastern. The opposite he sang. You can
51:08
say whatever you want, and I'll be
51:10
completely silent and express unless he's. Out of.
51:14
This enormous well as feeling
51:16
for her. And. Then
51:18
no way to express it. The
51:21
way to express a pretty good
51:23
at or that they can find.
51:25
but I think that's probably true
51:28
of contemporary parenting, including for father's
51:30
On where I think the stereotype
51:32
before was of being sort of
51:35
a distant, absent person. Or
51:37
me. Now I have three daughters and. I
51:40
have friends who are fathers and
51:42
they're very involved in their children's
51:44
live in a dangerous a pendulum
51:46
swinging too much on the other
51:48
extreme. Where. You become too
51:51
involved and you lose a sense of
51:53
yourself. So. It's like finding
51:55
the place. Where
51:57
you can show love but. also
52:01
leave your children the space to be who they need
52:03
to be. I
52:05
think you're more sympathetic to Dave than I am. I
52:09
feel like Dave has done some of this to himself,
52:12
not to be too hard on him, but it's like back
52:14
to sort of
52:16
this question I pose about him, it's like, how did you
52:19
let this happen to yourself? You
52:23
weren't this way your whole life. I guess it is
52:25
one of the bizarre
52:27
paradoxes of becoming
52:31
a parent, where you
52:34
had been your own person
52:36
for so long and then you have children
52:38
and the idea is
52:40
that they're supposed to learn from
52:42
you and you're supposed to be some kind
52:45
of model, to use that word, their modeling
52:47
behavior. But at the same
52:49
time, he's so wrapped up in
52:52
what's happening with her that I'm not sure
52:54
what he's modeling. So
52:56
nobody listening to him, it's like, well,
52:58
I'm not sure what Dave has to
53:01
say that is worth listening to, not
53:03
to be too hard on Dave, but I guess I am.
53:09
He makes some good choices, right? In
53:12
that moment when he says you can say whatever you want
53:15
and I won't comment on it, he
53:18
gives her a huge amount of
53:20
freedom. Oh, definitely. He's
53:22
very attuned to her mood
53:26
and I think generally not
53:28
falsely so. He doesn't seem to
53:30
be imagining it. No,
53:33
no, I think he's incredibly well-meaning
53:37
and really does want to understand her. We're
53:40
starting to get into some sort of parenting
53:43
philosophy part of our conversation,
53:45
but it's like, yeah, well, what do children actually
53:47
want? What do they want from their parents? Love
53:52
the fact that their parents want to understand
53:54
them. But
53:57
probably... Independence, yeah. Yeah, but
53:59
something... else like to understand like to
54:01
see something of their parents that's admirable
54:04
when she comes after the election and says
54:07
you know without going to school
54:09
and he's like just go back to bed and
54:11
then she comes back and she thinks he's joking and
54:13
she says daddy oh it's kind of heartbreaking when she
54:16
calls him daddy because
54:18
he's the dad but then she's like the little girl
54:23
and he says no I meant it like
54:27
it's that really the one moment in the story
54:29
where he's not catering to her. Yeah
54:33
she's also probably afraid right and she
54:35
wants her world to be normal and
54:38
this is so abnormal. There's
54:41
sort of a failure of the parental authority
54:43
you're right there is a moment in which
54:45
he's sort of failing her there. Yeah
54:49
it's so interesting to think about
54:52
this story because we're talking about
54:54
it eight years later there's so
54:56
much vagueness around
54:59
the election the
55:01
year is never given the
55:03
name of the candidates is
55:06
never given it's this idea that
55:08
like 50 years from now well you need footnotes
55:10
to understand what's going on here. Right
55:14
well we get the father saying you know
55:16
or he has high hopes that basic decency
55:18
will prevail. Right.
55:22
Which is a tip off for us right now
55:24
maybe I hope it still will be in the
55:26
future. Yes. But of
55:28
course it doesn't prevail. No
55:31
it didn't it certainly did not feel
55:34
like decency prevailed
55:37
or I think you
55:39
know maybe this is worth talking about now. You
55:42
know why the
55:45
story is set at this particular moment and
55:48
what is it that you
55:51
know joins what's
55:53
happening with him and Ivy and
55:55
the election like the commonality between
55:58
these two things. Yeah. I mean,
56:00
it's interesting. I think there's a kind of continual
56:03
sort of threat of danger in
56:05
the story that keeps almost
56:07
happening. I mean, and then even
56:09
the most dangerous moment, that car
56:11
accident, you know, you get to that
56:14
passage and you think, oh, my God, you know, she's
56:16
going to die or he's going to die or something.
56:19
And that's just like a seatbelt burn on
56:21
Instagram. You never
56:23
even know what happened. His attention
56:25
was distracted from the road because he's
56:27
obsessing about a YouTuber in this, you
56:29
know, sarcastic way. A
56:32
YouTuber, but also somebody else, right? Right,
56:36
yeah. He goes
56:38
from the jargon of
56:40
YouTube to the jargon of Trump. Yep,
56:42
yep. Yeah. And
56:47
then, of course, that is in
56:49
the world of the story, the biggest disaster is
56:52
the election result. I feel
56:55
like the story ends on
56:58
a happy note. Yes. Surprisingly,
57:03
just with this strange moment of connection between
57:05
them. But what sets it off
57:08
is this bizarre image of this
57:10
child throwing herself at
57:13
the window and
57:15
hitting it in the position of someone flung
57:17
as if from an obliterating blast against a
57:19
hard-exposing surface. It doesn't – you
57:22
know, this doesn't sound lighthearted.
57:25
What do you think she's – what should we
57:27
think she's doing there? I
57:30
mean, there's, I think, a literal
57:32
thing that she's doing, which
57:35
alludes to, I would say, the
57:37
car accident, right? The thing
57:40
that we don't see, the windshield.
57:43
I guess she wasn't probably flattened
57:45
against the windshield because of
57:47
the seatbelt. But
57:50
I think she's alluding to that. And
57:53
then there's this other part of
57:55
it, which I guess is – for
57:57
him, it's the election. I don't know if she's alluding to that.
58:01
It's at the level of storycraft.
58:03
It's so amazing because,
58:06
and it took me a while to absorb it.
58:11
Like the story starts with Dave
58:13
looking at Instagram, which is just
58:16
images, you know, under glass.
58:20
And it ends with
58:22
her actually becoming this
58:26
ephemeral Instagram
58:28
image just for
58:30
him, and that he
58:32
can participate in. And
58:34
he gives her a thumbs up in the dark. Like
58:37
it is so, it's so subtle, right?
58:39
But for those of us who know, who've,
58:42
you know, which is, I think everybody now,
58:44
like, how do you demonstrate that you like
58:46
something? Well, yeah, it's a thumbs up.
58:48
It's a like. So
58:50
he likes her image to
58:53
the point of what you were saying, Deborah, about how the
58:56
images become wilder. I think that's the wildest
58:59
one of them all. And
59:01
that one is just for him. And
59:03
he likes it. He likes it
59:06
so much he, you know, communes
59:08
with it in his way. I
59:11
have mixed responses to it because I also,
59:13
the description of it makes me think of
59:15
kind of a chalk outline, you know, where
59:17
his body has fallen, that
59:20
kind of pose that you would see in a
59:22
death scene. And
59:25
then he makes it alive again. And
59:28
he's also balancing on one foot, and
59:30
she's balancing on one foot. And there's
59:32
all that stuff about his bad leg
59:34
and her bad leg. Yeah,
59:37
it just, it ties so
59:39
much together at the very
59:41
end. And then she, you know, and then she
59:43
laughs. I don't think she's really laughed with
59:46
him or for him up to
59:49
this point. And
59:52
it's so loving, you know, finally he
59:54
gets the Instagram image
59:58
that he wanted. So, I mean, in that sense, it's just. sense
1:00:00
it's yeah it's a very hopeful ending and
1:00:03
he also concedes that it's something that
1:00:06
probably could not have been communicated any
1:00:10
other way and so it's
1:00:12
an image that
1:00:14
he interprets that
1:00:17
gives him a sense of connection
1:00:20
to her Bynum
1:00:22
did a Q&A about the story when
1:00:24
it came out and she
1:00:26
said you know I'll just read it to you she
1:00:28
said what takes the dad by surprise is
1:00:31
not his daughter's ups and downs but the intensity
1:00:33
of his own feelings as he watches her go
1:00:35
through them he thought he was
1:00:37
just tagging along for the ride and now finds
1:00:39
he can't get off the roller coaster he
1:00:41
knows that he should be down on the
1:00:44
ground waving and smiling in a stationary figure
1:00:46
feet planted but instead he's
1:00:48
up in the air right beside her clutching the
1:00:50
lap bar and screaming my
1:00:53
question is like why
1:00:56
you know why is it
1:00:58
so difficult why is it so hard for him
1:01:00
to create the
1:01:03
necessary objective distance in a way that his wife
1:01:05
can and he can't I guess
1:01:07
that's part of the
1:01:09
experience of reading the story like or
1:01:12
for me because I'm a
1:01:14
father and you know I think about how to
1:01:16
parent children daughters in my case
1:01:20
and do think about you know the
1:01:24
losing yourself or not losing
1:01:26
yourself and yeah finding the
1:01:31
necessary or the best way to
1:01:33
relate to your own children and
1:01:36
what you know for
1:01:38
lack of a better word what
1:01:40
image to present to them yeah
1:01:43
yeah he has no Instagram now
1:01:48
yeah and he tries a few he tries several
1:01:51
approaches that's in that final one's the only one
1:01:53
that works yeah
1:01:56
and I guess it's also maybe
1:01:58
for him it is kind of
1:02:01
a regression to his own
1:02:03
12-year-old self in
1:02:06
that, you know, in
1:02:08
that flashback. What
1:02:10
do you think of his childhood? I think it's sort of so
1:02:12
poignant that he looks at her and thinks
1:02:16
she was the kind of girl he would have been afraid
1:02:18
of back
1:02:20
then who would have intimidated him because
1:02:22
she still intimidates him. Yes. And I
1:02:25
think that I've thought that too in reading the story.
1:02:27
It's like how odd
1:02:31
it is that you
1:02:33
can be the parent
1:02:36
of someone who would have intimidated you when you
1:02:38
were, you know, that age. But
1:02:40
I created you and maybe that's part of Dave's
1:02:42
problem that he still, even though
1:02:44
he says he can't remember himself
1:02:47
at, you know, in the sixth grade at 12. So
1:02:50
much of the story when he does reflect back is
1:02:53
about him being her age. Yeah.
1:02:55
And it's funny that what he remembers, you
1:02:57
know, he can't remember sixth grade, but he
1:03:00
remembers the faces of
1:03:03
all the kids in his grade and they sort of pop
1:03:05
up like mug shots. I mean, it sounds
1:03:07
to me more like he's remembering
1:03:09
a yearbook or something, but that
1:03:12
was, you know, that was his Instagram. Right.
1:03:15
Exactly. And all of their names, I mean, from
1:03:17
a, just from a writing standpoint, it's like I
1:03:19
would want to ask, they're like, are
1:03:22
those actually the names of
1:03:24
the people in your
1:03:26
homeroom? Or did you have to like sit down
1:03:28
and come up with names, which I find always
1:03:30
very, very difficult to do. I don't
1:03:34
think we would have allowed her to use real
1:03:36
people. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. From
1:03:39
a legal standpoint. What if she said this
1:03:41
kid was awful in sixth grade
1:03:43
and then that person sued her? But she doesn't
1:03:45
say anything about them. They just, just their names
1:03:47
and their faces. Yeah.
1:03:53
So yeah, no, I think those were
1:03:55
invented, invented Dave classmates. We
1:03:59
didn't talk about the title. at all. Should we
1:04:01
talk about the title? Yeah, let's talk
1:04:03
about the title. So I mean,
1:04:05
there's the obvious reason that it's
1:04:07
called likes. Do
1:04:10
you think there are less obvious reasons? You
1:04:13
really get that the core of
1:04:15
Dave's concern about language and probably,
1:04:17
you know, the author's concern about
1:04:19
language too. And
1:04:21
the extent to which it
1:04:26
enables something in our
1:04:29
lives and in the culture when
1:04:31
language gets transformed
1:04:34
this way, you know,
1:04:36
in the most, that kind of in a, in
1:04:39
an anxious way to talk about it.
1:04:42
Yeah. But for Ivy, that is, that
1:04:44
is her language. That's the language
1:04:46
she's learned and knows, and
1:04:48
she wouldn't question it. Exactly. Yeah,
1:04:50
that's good. That's good that you say that ever
1:04:52
because I say the first part where it's like,
1:04:54
I sound like old and boomerish, and then you
1:04:56
say this part, which is good. Yes.
1:04:59
Yeah. And it's not as menacing
1:05:02
to her. That's just the fact of
1:05:04
life, right? This is what she, she's
1:05:06
young enough, you know, for
1:05:10
there not to be really a pre social
1:05:12
media time in her life. There's
1:05:14
a time when she probably didn't have it, but there
1:05:17
wasn't a time when it didn't exist. And
1:05:20
I think the, the
1:05:23
way that she knows that there's anything
1:05:25
even, you know, somewhat
1:05:27
pejorative associated with it is
1:05:30
her parents and
1:05:32
her dad. And she like she tweaks
1:05:34
him, she plays with him about like, she's
1:05:36
writing a YA novel. Come on, dad, it's
1:05:39
reading. She
1:05:41
knows how he feels, but but he, I mean, he
1:05:43
seems ridiculous to her in that way. I think in
1:05:45
the way that all parents seem
1:05:48
ridiculous to their children, and when they feel kind
1:05:50
of outmoded. Yeah. So
1:05:54
for you and me, it's like, I'm
1:05:57
sure, well, at least I have got to that point where
1:05:59
I'm like, yes, it's reading, reading, read it,
1:06:01
do it, do it, because at least you're
1:06:03
reading as
1:06:05
opposed to staring at your phone. So,
1:06:07
uh, yes, I'm there, I'm there at
1:06:09
that moment. I got dragged along, I'm
1:06:11
there too. Yeah,
1:06:15
she knows, she knows. They're
1:06:18
both right, which is,
1:06:20
which is what's great about,
1:06:22
you know, good, good art.
1:06:24
They're both right. She's right
1:06:26
to be anxious and
1:06:29
she's also right to not
1:06:33
be paranoid, um,
1:06:35
and just to live her life. And there's
1:06:38
probably, as he's trying to reflect
1:06:40
back on being, you know, 12 years old
1:06:42
and is it normal? Well,
1:06:45
yeah, he can, if he could access
1:06:47
that part of himself, you
1:06:49
could take all the Instagram out of it in
1:06:51
the Snapchat because that's not really
1:06:53
what he's worried about. He's
1:06:55
worried about what it's like to be 12 and
1:06:58
that it hasn't changed quite so much, if only
1:07:00
he could access it. The
1:07:02
nice thing is to be reminded that, you know,
1:07:05
even in your most
1:07:07
paranoid moments, um, that there's still
1:07:10
more that is, um, similar
1:07:13
than dissimilar about, you
1:07:15
know, being a child.
1:07:18
Yeah, yeah. And ultimately he's worried about her
1:07:20
happiness, you know, he's worried about, about
1:07:24
what she's feeling. Yeah. And
1:07:29
I guess parents have always worried about that. I'm
1:07:31
actually not 100% sure that parents have always worried
1:07:33
about it to this extent. No, I'm not sure
1:07:35
either. That's the
1:07:37
type of preoccupation that feels. Not
1:07:39
supposed to be feeling. You're supposed to be doing your
1:07:41
homework. Yeah. And you as a
1:07:43
parent are supposed to be like, you know, off,
1:07:46
you know, smoking or something. That's
1:07:48
the cocktail part of it. Yeah.
1:07:51
She's concerned about, you know, the Dorothy side
1:07:53
of a play date, but
1:07:56
it's so beautifully done because
1:07:58
it's, it's prismatic. that way
1:08:00
you can you know you can see it from all these sides
1:08:03
and it's funny so many
1:08:05
instances where I had to like try not to crack
1:08:07
up because the
1:08:09
writing is so good and she does this thing
1:08:11
which she does it in her other stories too
1:08:13
a type
1:08:16
of withholding like with the fork
1:08:18
you only realized later that in
1:08:21
his rant he'd
1:08:23
like smack the fork off the table and
1:08:26
it's a very satisfying way of figuring
1:08:28
that out and the same way as
1:08:30
a car accident all these things this
1:08:32
lovely sort of dramatic withholding yeah
1:08:36
well thank you David oh so much
1:08:38
fun it's such a great story Sarah
1:08:43
Swenyan Bynum is the author of three books
1:08:45
of fiction Madeline is sleeping a winner of
1:08:47
the Janice Heidinger Kafka prize Miss
1:08:50
Hempel Chronicle and likes which was published in 2020
1:08:52
and was a finalist
1:08:54
for the LA Times book prize and the story prize
1:08:56
in 2010 she was chosen
1:08:59
as one of the New Yorkers 20 under
1:09:01
40 fiction writers David
1:09:03
Bismosgus is a filmmaker and writer he's
1:09:06
published two story collections and two novels the
1:09:08
free world which was a finalist for the
1:09:10
Governor General's Award in the killer prize and
1:09:13
the betrayers which won the National Jewish Book
1:09:15
Award he was also chosen as
1:09:17
one of the New Yorkers 20 under 40 in
1:09:19
2010 you can
1:09:21
download more than 200 previous episodes of the
1:09:23
New Yorker fiction podcast or subscribe to the
1:09:26
podcast for free in Apple podcast on
1:09:29
the writers voice podcast you can hear short stories
1:09:31
from the magazine read by their authors you
1:09:33
can find their writers voice another New Yorker
1:09:35
podcast on your podcast app tell
1:09:38
us what you thought of this program on our Facebook
1:09:40
page or rate and review us in Apple podcast
1:09:43
this episode is the New Yorker fiction podcast was
1:09:45
produced by Jill Duboff I'm
1:09:48
Deborah Treisman thanks for listening you
1:10:08
Hi, I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of The
1:10:10
New Yorker. Each week on
1:10:12
the Writer's Voice podcast, New Yorker fiction writers
1:10:14
read their newly published stories from the magazine.
1:10:18
You can hear from authors like Colson Whitehead. Turner
1:10:21
nudged Ellwood, who had a look of horror
1:10:23
on his face. They saw it.
1:10:26
Griff wasn't going down. He
1:10:28
was going to go for it, no matter
1:10:31
what happened after. Or
1:10:33
Joy Williams. Her father was
1:10:35
silent. Slowly, he passed his
1:10:38
hand over his hair. This
1:10:40
usually meant that he was traveling to a
1:10:43
place immune to her presence, a
1:10:45
place that indeed contradicted her presence.
1:10:48
She might as well go to lunch. Listen
1:10:52
to new stories or dive into our archive of
1:10:54
great fiction. You can find the
1:10:56
work of your favorite fiction writers and discover new
1:10:58
ones. Listen and follow
1:11:00
The Writer's Voice wherever you get your podcasts.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More