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 Emma

Klein read her story white noise from the June 8th and 15th 2020 issue of the

magazine. Klein's first novel, The Girls, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, came out in 2016,

and her story collection, Daddy, will be published later this year.

Now here's Emma Klein.

White noise.

The dreams had mostly stopped.

Still he found himself awake, blinking in the dark room.

4 a.m.

He lay on moving for a moment under the duvet.

His t-shirt was stuck to his back. Night sweats, the pillow swampy, the sheets

damp. Roll to the other side, spread out on the chilly sheets, keep the eyes closed.

As soon as both eyes opened, it would be straight to dull business.

An organizer already laid out with his morning meds, a bottle of room-temperature Fiji

water alongside. This time tomorrow he would know everything.

Well not exactly this time more like 10 a.m. but in any case all would be decided.

He believed truly that he would be exonerated. How could he not be? This was America.

Maybe there was a moment, a day or two, right when this all began, when he believed that this might be it, the end of the road.

He understood Epstein hanging himself in his cell, because what would life look like afterward?

No more dinner parties, no more respect. like afterward.

No more dinner parties, no more respect, no buffer of fear and admiration that kept you in a kind

...