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 Aye

Fiction

The New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice, we'll hear Joy Williams read her story, The Beach House, from the January 15th, 2024 issue of the magazine.

Williams, a winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction,

is the author of five-story collections, including 99 stories of God

and the visiting privilege new and collected stories and five novels including Harrow which was published in 2021.

Now here's Joy Williams.

The Beach House. She was hoping he would leave her the Beach House, counting on this actually, though he had told her he wasn't going to.

He said he would be leaving it to an organization that offered sanctuary to abandon German

Shepherds. But that had to be a joke, right? The German Shepherds wouldn't

be quartered in the Beach House, rather the shabby but invaluable property would be sold.

The proceeds going to an organization

that had to be fraudulent, unlicensed,

a figment of her father's imagination.

Her father said that he loved her. He just wasn't going to leave her the beach house, which to him had become not the beach house at all, but in truth something else entirely.

He believed he was going to pass soon,

and he had been thinking about mighty matters.

There was much to learn.

He was exploring many teachings, and one avenue of thought had somehow led him to disinherit his only child.

Amber, her name was, a name she

...