This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, Fiction Editor at The New Yorker.

On this week's episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Greg Jackson read his story, The Honest Island,

from the November 11th, 2024 issue of the magazine. Jackson is the author of a story collection,

prodigals, for which he received the National Book Foundation's Five Under 35 award, and a novel,

The Dimensions of a Cave, which was published last year. Now here's Greg Jackson.

The Honest Island.

Crant did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.

He had ransacked his mind, but he could not remember,

and he could not recall many other things besides. The period before his arrival, for instance, he knew he came from elsewhere.

His appearance made that abundantly clear, and he did not speak the islander's language.

Although between gestures and the few words of his own language the islanders knew. He could communicate

most of his basic needs. The island was small. If one cared to, one could walk from one end to

the other in a matter of hours. To reach the southern tip, where there was a swimming beach, he

sometimes took one of the small buses that circulated throughout the day. Across the hazy sea to the south,

one saw a city on a far-off coastline, with factories lining its harbor, whose tall chimneys emitted knotted

white streams. An unmaintained road led from the swimming beach into steep hills above, where an abandoned

complex of concrete structures

had been overrun by bushes and ivy. To the north, not visible from the beach, was a distant

shore where rows of mountains resembling jagged waves disappeared into the mist. The island itself

had a teardrop shape. Grant knew this from a map at the bus depot and another at the ferry

terminal. Its northern half had been given over to mining ventures. Large machines dug up the rocky

...