This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Debra Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Mary Costello read her story, The Chalk Eye Swimming, from the October 16th, 2023 issue of the magazine.

Costello is the author of three books, including Academy Street, which won the Irish novel of the Year Award,

and the novel The River Capture, which came out in 2019. Now here's Mary Costello.

The Chalk Eye Swimming.

Francis had never been in a hearse before. Mr. O'Shea, the undertaker, pulled out into traffic and set off down North Circular Road,

past the women's wing of Mount Joy Prison, and the library at Eglinton Terrace, where she had been a librarian for 12 years before her retirement.

She was grateful for the hum of the engine, the city outside.

She kept herself apart, mentally, from Mr. O'Shea. She forgot briefly about the coffin with the remains of her brother Dennis behind her,

until the hearse break to going downhill, and she had a vision of it crashing through the glass partition and slamming into them.

Are you all right there, Mr. O'Shea asked at the traffic light?

I am, thanks, she replied.

Is it warm enough? Would you like me to turn up the heat?

I'm fine, thanks, she said. I'm sorry about this, she added. I'm sure you'd much prefer to be on your own for the journey.

There had been a moment of confusion outside the hospital morgue when she announced her intention to travel in the hearse.

The coffin had already been loaded and the paperwork completed when she and Frank arrived.

We can head off so if you're ready, Mr. O'Shea had said.

I'll go in the hearse with you, she'd said suddenly. It had come out of nowhere.

Mr. O'Shea had looked at her and then at Frank a little alarmed.

Without another word, she'd gone round to the passenger side and got in.

They were crossing the Liffey at Island Bridge now.

I know it's usually a man from the family that travels in the hearse, she continued.

...