This is the writer's voice, new fiction from the New Yorker. I'm Deborah

Treisman fiction at the New Yorker. The July 27th issue of the New Yorker is a bonus issue,

an anthology of pieces from the magazine's archives on the subject of American descent.

The issue includes a reprint of Shirley Jackson's story, The Lottery.

And to accompany that, we're re-rereleasing the following episode of the New Yorker

Fiction Podcast from 2008, in which A.M. Holmes reads the Lot lottery and discusses it with me.

We hope you'll enjoy it and thank you for listening.

This is the New Yorker Fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine. I'm Deborah

Treisman 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 a story by Shirley Jackson called The Lottery.

Seventy-seventh year I've been in the lottery, old man Warner said as he went through the crowd,

77th time.

The lottery was chosen by A.M. Holmes, who is the author of six novels, including

this book will save your life and two story collections. She has published a personal history and two short stories in the New Yorker.

Hi, A.M.

Hi, Deborah.

You wrote an introduction to Jackson's collection, The Lottery, and other stories,

and in it you referred to the Lottery as an icon in the history of the American short story.

What did you mean by that?

You know, I meant several things.

I mean, I think the lottery is a story that is, I think, taught in every American school and I often think it's taught at a point in

...