The Lonely Voice

In "The Tea Ceremony" by Gina Berriault, protagonist, Delia, struggles with wanting beautiful things. Her family's hardscrabble life doesn't measure up. She isn't the most beautiful girl in her class. While she is liked, she doesn't have any friends. Beauty becomes closely linked to her ability to imagine her future. But somehow, perhaps, she will finally see that there was always a kind of beauty closer to home.

This is a special episode of "The Lonely Voice." Hosts Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner welcome guest host Alex Gordon to discuss "Train Dreams" by Denis Johnson — and the Oscar-nominated film adaptation of that novella.

Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss Roberto Bolaño' short story " Gómez Palacio." A young writer travels to a desolate northern Mexican town to interview for a teaching position during a particularly grim period of his life. Telling the story in hindsight allows us to see the ways the place was actually unforgettable.

Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss "Berries" and other stories from Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov. The author underscores the horrors of totalitarianism and the will to survive of the characters in the stories that are based on all-too real events and situations that the author himself experienced.

To celebrate the fiftieth episode of "The Lonely Voice" podcast, Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss the four stories in the "Edouard, Juliette, Lena" story cycle — "A Recollection," "The Colonel's Child," "Rue de Lille," and "Lena."

Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss “Out with the Old” by Richard Yates. The setting is a tuberculosis ward in a veterans' hospital on December 31,1950. Dreams have faded for these patients whose best years seem to be behind them. For the character of McIntyre something miraculous happens. This is a powerful New Year’s Eve story.

In Grace Paley's "The Loudest Voice," a young Jewish girl from an immigrant family is chosen to narrate her school's Christmas pageant. This is an open-hearted story — just right for us now during the holidays — or any day at all.

Miss Snell isn’t as fun as other third grade teachers. Come the last day of school before the Christmas holiday, she holds a regular class day. There are no treats to eat and no presents. What can the students learn from their disappointment? What are the larger lessons for the rest of us? Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss “Fun with a Stranger” by Richard Yates.

On this episode of "The Lonely Voice," Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss the story “Love” by William Maxwell. A man recalls his fifth-grade teacher—a young woman who was kind and thoughtful. She becomes the center of a very hard lesson the protagonist learns in childhood about the impermanence of things.

Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss two stories by Lucia Berlin— "Panteón de Dolores" and "Emergency Room Notebook, 1977." In these stories we find family dysfunction and tragedy set against the backdrop of another country and its culture and rituals — or in a hospital, another place with its protocols and routines. Except within all that is expected in these settings there is something totally new to make us pay attention to situations and people to whom we might never have given a second thought.

Nicholas Regiacorte joins Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides to discuss two poems by Zbigniew Herbert.

Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss two stories by the German author, Heinrich Böll who is known as a master of the short story. He wrote about World War II and postwar concerns, centered social and political issues, and endowed his characters with decency and hope.

Rwandan-born Namibian author Rémy Ngamije discusses two stories from his book, Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space: A Literary Mixtape with Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides.

Wright Morris' characters can be odd, and they do unusual things. But there is something real and recognizable about these people and their situations. Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss two stories from Collected Stories: 1948-1986 by Wright Morris.

In the story “Clara” by Roberto Bolaño, a man tells the story of a woman he knew in his youth. Over three decades later, he hasn’t forgotten her. The story is riddled with tells that reveal that he’s carried the memory of her around with him for all that time. What is the hold she has on him all about?

Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired" by Richard Yates. It’s a story narrated by a man looking back on his childhood during the Depression. He recalls difficult moments that are brutally honest but told with a tender acceptance of what was.

Acclaimed writer ZZ Packer joins Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides to discuss “Gold Coast” by James Alan McPherson.

Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner welcome internationally renowned cartoonist, Ricardo Siri— known professionally as Liniers—to discuss “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” by Herman Melville.

The two lovers in this story are a very attractive man and the homeliest woman he has ever known. It might be surprising to some of our listeners out there that the relationship depicted here in this very strange story can be relatable. Can it? Yes. That’s the way it is with stories.

Breece D'J Pancake died young in 1979 at age 26 but since then he has continued to be considered a great American story writer. Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss two stories by this native of West Virginia.