Hi this is David Remnick and I'm pleased to share that two New Yorker films have been

nominated for this year's Academy Awards. No kidding. One of them, The Barber of Little Rock is nominated for Best Documentary Short Film

and looks at America's growing racial wealth gap through the story of Arlo Washington,

a barber in Arkansas who is reshaping the future of banking for black Americans.

You can watch it and the magazine's full slate of acclaimed short films at New Yorker.com

slash video.

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 Fiona McFarland, read her story

hostile from the March 11th 2024 issue of the magazine. McFarland is the

author of two novels and a story collection, The High Places, which was awarded the International

Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. A new collection, Highway 13, will be published in August.

Now here's Fiona McFarland. Hostel.

I've never told my husband this story, but I suppose I will eventually, on some sticky

night in, say February, as we lie naked in bed with the ceiling fan set at its highest speed.

We'll be waiting for a storm to bluster in from the south and I'll see the relevant

part of him lying flushed and heavy against his thigh and I'll see the relevant part of him laying flushed and heavy against his thigh,

and I'll think about how I'd consider taking it in my mouth if the room were cooler by as little as two degrees.

That will remind me of Roy and his wife and I'll feel like talking about them.

And I'll start by telling my husband that I used to know this couple who, on learning they

were going to have a baby, began taking long walks together in the evening.

I might not use their real names. It would be hard though not to reveal Roy's, which seemed almost to have shaped his personality.

...