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

fiction editor at the New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice, we'll hear

Annie Prew read her story The Hadl Zone from the July 8th and 15th 2024 issue of

the magazine. Prew's works of fiction include the novels That Old Ace in the Whole and Bark skins, and

three collections of Wyoming stories, close range, bad dirt, and fine just the way it is. She's a winner of the Penn Faulkner Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction,

among other awards.

Now here's Annie Prew.

The Hadal Zone.

Arwin-Rassmont waits hours at Koflavik International for his flight. They call it as he leaves the men's room.

He walks past the mirrored wall and is assaulted, as usual, by his dead father's handsome image, high-arched nose, yellow hair.

A difference in the contact glance.

The father's a hard squinting challenge, the son's side long and measuring.

A week earlier, the luxury real estate rental mogul Roderick Cushin had sent Arwin to Reykjavik to examine and make a judgment on a rare 19th century whaling

captain's house perched above a fjord with a view of dripping icebergs.

Now, as he stands in the boarding line, he checks the snapshots on his phone.

The most recent shows the interior entryway of that house.

An umbrella jar holds several walking sticks

and two ancient Inuit harpoons with whalebone barbs.

On the wall above them hangs a gleaming 19th century harpoon gun.

It is, Arvone thinks, whaling history in a nutshell. Such details he knows are priceless to cushion. He looks at the steel gleam of the

harpoons, cruel instruments. The owner is a taciturn old woman who didn't like the sound of Cushion's deal and pushed the door open inviting Arwin out, but not before he took that quick shot of the harpoons.

When Acme airs loudspeakers rattle out the information that boarding for his flight is underway,

...