mimetic rivalry

One of my favorite podcasts is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast in which a published New Yorker Magazine story author picks another author’s story from the archives, reads it out loud and discusses it with a New Yorker editor. Listening to that podcast a few days ago, I chanced upon the story “Adams” written by George Saunders and read by Joshua Ferris. (Here is a link to that podcast reading and discussion. Here is a link to the text of the story from the New Yorker archives if that works better for you.) I mention it because Saunders’ story is a near perfect (more…)