The Lonely Voice

Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod ( W. W. Norton & Company)

What do we inherit from the places we come from?

A landscape. A language. A way of seeing the world. Maybe even a sense of who we are meant to become.

In Alistair MacLeod’s short story “The Boat,” a young man grows up on the rugged coast of Cape Breton Island, where his family’s life is shaped by the sea. The ocean provides for them, but it also demands something in return. It becomes a symbol of the ties that hold a family t...

( Scribner)

The focus on this episode of the podcast is a masterclass in domestic tension and psychological confinement: the 1959 short story "Asigh" by the incomparable Mary Lavin.

If you are new to Mary Lavin, you are in for a revelation—and we think you will become a fan of her work.

She wrote at a time when Irish literature was heavily dominated by male perspectives — writers like Joyce and Beckett. Lavin carved out her own space where she could build worlds around the inner lives of women.

The story centers on a young woma...

The Tea Ceremony: The Uncollected Writings of Gina Berriault ( Counterpoint Press )

Texas Public Radio had the rare and wonderful opportunity to host acclaimed author Peter Orner at a special event last January. After over five years of collaborating on "The Lonely Voice," we were all in the same room — in person — while discussing his latest novel, "The Gossip Columnist's Daughter." We also recorded a couple of episodes of "The Lonely Voice."

We always go back to short stories. We had to. How often does one get to sit in the same room with Peter Orner and talk abou...

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson ( Picador Paper )

Alex Gordon, a Chicago-based editor and journalist, joins the program.

He is the perfect guest host to join The Lonely Voice for an episode about Train Dreams by Denis Johnson.

This is a podcast where we celebrate the short story. That means we explore the worlds that authors build in just a few pages. We’ve taken that idea to heart so much, we’ve even veered before into one episode about poetry.

Every once in a while, a piece of fiction comes along that is too...

Roberto Bolaño

On this episode Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss the story “Gómez Palacio” by Roberto Bolaño.

This is a story selected by Peter Orner for this episode. It’s a curious choice — but not altogether surprising as it seems to be a favorite story for the legions of aficionados of Bolaño’s stories.

For many of us, the favorite Bolaño story is any one that we happen to be reading.

In “Gómez Palacio” an unnamed protagonist is far from home in the country of Mexico — specifically the town...

Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov(NYRB )

On this episode, Peter Orner joined us in person in the TPR studios in San Antonio.

On this episode Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss stories by the Russian writer, Varlam Shalamov.

He was a journalist and a writer. In 1936, he was arrested for counterrevolutionary activities and sent to the Soviet Gulag. After surviving 15 years in prison campus, he was released and would go on to write short fictional stories that reflect the years he spent in the Gulag.

The New York Review of Books (NYRB) published...

Mavis Gallant( Knopf )

This is a special 50th episode of the podcast. To celebrate, we have one of our favorites — Mavis Gallant — and not just one, but four stories.

There’s a series of four Mavis Gallant stories that might be presented to us in various sequences and that feature the stories of three characters — "Edouard, Juliette, and Lena."

We hope that’s clear. Four stories. Three characters. Edouard narrates throughout.

It starts with “A Recollection” a rather vague title for a story that establishes a lot that’s going on during a contentious time...

“Out with the Old" by Richard Yates is a New Year's Eve story.

It's set on December 31, 1950, in the tuberculosis ward of Mulloy’s Veterans Hospital in New York.

Tiny and Jones are patients in the ward — of building seven, to be specific. And it's worth noting. They are in a building that's set apart from the other veterans.

In the hospital where each day is like the next, they want to break up the monotony of things during the holiday season.

At the appointed time, Tiny (whose nickname is ironic) will c...

Grace Paley

We are excited and happy to be talking about a Grace Paley story again. And it’s one we bring to you to coincide with the holidays.

Shirley Abramowitz is the “voice” of the title. She is “the loudest voice” in the school. The sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Hilton, knows this about her, indeed summons her and gives her the role of a kind of narrator of the Christmas pageant.

Never mind that Shirley is Jewish—as are many of the other kids in the program. For her, as we see, it is quite enough to be...

Richard Yates

Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss “Fun with a Stranger” by Richard Yates.

As with a previous episode, the focus again is a school story — with a teacher and her third grade class.

In the previous episode, William Maxwell’s “Love” helped us see the ways a protagonist learned a lesson about love through his fifth grade teacher, Miss Vera Brown. He learned about love — that it blooms in beautiful and unforgettable ways. Miss Brown was pretty, gentle, and compassionate. The protagonist feels a kind of love from her — and for her.

This time, we...

William Maxwell

What do you expect from a short story with such a title as “Love”?

It’s not about familial or romantic love. It isn’t about a friendship either.

This is a story about a teacher. Sure, the narrator seems to have been infatuated with the teacher—a young woman named Miss Vera Brown—when he was in the fifth grade.

His nostalgic recollection of her classroom imbues here with a kind of saintliness. She was angelic in his telling.

And then something happens and the boy must learn a difficult...

Lucia Berlin (Buddy Berlin )

Reading the stories of Lucia Berlin can be an intense experience. The pacing of each moves with suddenness but then also lingers for brief moments of beauty and light juxtaposed with something unseemly and sad.

Characters want connection and love—and sometimes settle for something else that can lead to bad decisions—broken hearts, addiction.

Generally acknowledged are the autobiographical details in Berlin’s stories—the alcoholism and addiction, the humor and the heartbreak.

In the two stories we cover in this episode—"Panteón de Dolores" and "Emergency Room Notebo...

Zbigniew Herbert

On this episode, Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides welcome the poet Nicholas Regiacorte to the Lonely Voice clubhouse to discuss two poems by Zbigniew Herbert— “The Rain” and “Elegy of Fortinbras.”

Grace Paley famously compared poetry to short fiction.

She once wrote that, "A short story is closer to the poem than to the novel (I've said that a million times) and when it's very, very short... should be read like a poem. That is slowly."

The reverse can be true, and a poem can be read like a story.

So it st...

Heinrich Böll

On this episode, Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss “The Death of Elsa Baskoleit” by Heinrich Böll. And stay tuned for a bonus discussion about another Heinrich Böll story, “Parting.”

On "The Lonely Voice" podcast, where we celebrate the short story, we were bound to get around to Heinrich Böll. What took us so long? He was a master of the 20th century short story–and he was prolific.

He was German and chronicled World War II, the bleakest of postwar years, but also the rebirth and prosperity of the country ov...

On this episode of The Lonely Voice, super special guest, Rémy Ngamije, joins in to discuss his story, “Nine Months Since Forever” found in his collection Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space: A Literary Mixtape. We also share a short bonus conversation about another story, “The Giver of Nicknames.”

Rémy Ngamije is an award-winning Rwandan-born Namibian author.

He's also the author of the award-winning The Eternal Audience of One and the book we’ll talk about today.

Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space is his collection of award-winning fiction. The subtitle...

On this episode we’re talking about Wright Morris. We’ll focus on two of his stories from his Collected Stories: 1948-1986, published in 1986.

We’ll start off with “The Origin of Sadness”—and then stay tuned for a short bonus conversation about “Real Losses, Imaginary Gains.”

My own fascination with Wright Morris started probably 30 years after this story collection was published. He was prolific and published novels, memoirs, stories, and even photography and had a long career in writing that started in the late 1940s.

But it was, I believe, 2016 when I first read an es...

Roberto Bolaño

Peter Orner is in Chile for the Cátedra Abierta en Homenaje a Roberto Bolaño con Peter Orner—a lecture honoring Roberto Bolaño sponsored by the Universidad Diego Portales.

So though we didn’t want to impose on Peter while he was away, it also seemed a good time to pay tribute to Roberto Bolaño in one more way—here on "The Lonely Voice with Peter Orner."

Bolaño was born in Chile—and though he lived in Mexico with his family for a time and then in Spain, he is generall...

Richard Yates

“Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired” is considered to be one of the best stories by Richard Yates, a writer who perhaps didn’t enjoy a lot of accolades when he was alive and publishing his work.

One of the reasons this podcast even exists is precisely because of authors like Richard Yates.

Maybe most people would say, “never heard of him” about Yates and his novels and stories.

That’s the kind of response that’s become practically a cue for us on this podcast to get going on talking about a largely...

( Harper Perennial)

Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides welcome the inimitable ZZ Packer—to discuss the sublime story by James Alan McPherson, “Gold Coast.”

ZZ Packer and Peter Orner were both students of James Alan McPherson during their time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

ZZ Packer has written about the profound influence that James Alan McPherson has had on her.

She considers him one of the smartest and wisest people she’s ever known and has said that “he cared so much, and so deeply,” and that he was “just so intent on fin...

Herman Melville

On this episode of The Lonely Voice podcast, hosts Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner welcome back guest Ricardo Siri—the internationally renowned cartoonist who is known professionally as Liniers.

In a past episode of The Lonely Voice, they discussed "Funes the Memorious" and "The South" by Jorge Luis Borges.

They join forces again this time to tackle—and celebrate—the beloved and enigmatic story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” by Herman Melville.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Stree...