Selected Shorts on NCPR

This program includes two stories featuring improbable events.  The first, Joyce Johnson’s “The Fall of Texas” chronicles a pivotal moment in the 1960s, when both the terrestrial world and the personal life of the heroine seemed about to collapse.  “Sex in the City” star Cynthia Nixon reads.  Next, in Percival Everett’s “The Fix,” read by host Isaiah Sheffer, the story’s central character can fix anything—anything: toasters, heartaches, lives.  Who is he? 

We think of this program as a literary “mix tape,” featuring two stories mingling with the music that inspired, or played a role in them. “Milestones,” by Miles Davis was the inspiration for Hannah Tinti’s story of the same name, read here by the performance artist Laurie Anderson.  Next, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 12 is featured in Carson McCullers’ touching “Wunderkind.”  It is read by the prodigious musical theatre star Kelli O’Hara.

In  Krista MacGruder’s “Not Quite Home Alone,” a solitary woman is surprised by an intruder.  The reader is Jacqueline Kim.  In the second story, Miranda July’s “The Shared Patio,” a woman takes her right to share a patio with her neighbors to extremes.    The reader is Kirsten Vangsness.  A hypochondriac beholds a monster in Poe’s “The Sphinx,” read by Kathleen Widdoes.  Finally, in Richard Ford’s “Privacy,” a novelist becomes obsessed with watching a neighbor.  The reader is René Auberjonois.

First, James Lasdun’s “A Woman at the Window,” is a cautionary tale for men who want to rescue damsels in distress.  The reader is Leenya Rideout.  Next, the late Ukranian-born writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky has invented a substance that expands apartments, and wreaks havoc on the life of his main character.  “This American Life” commentator David Rakoff provides the nicely melancholy reading.  Finally, Leenya Rideout returns for “Flight,” in which a scatter-brained, lonely woman “borrows” her addled neighbor.

Each of the three works on this program, by masters Tennessee Williams, Edna O’Brien, and Flannery O’Connor, offers us intense and provocative close-ups of its main characters.  First, “Life Story,” a short prose poem about pillow talk by a very young Williams, read by Mia Dillon.  Sex is the theme of the second work as well: in Edna O’Brien’s inner monologue, “Violets,” a woman waits for a potential lover.  The reader is Fionnula Flanagan.  Finally, Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” features a mother, daughter, and tramp, each wishing for something different.  Lois Smith reads.