The New Yorker: Fiction · The New Yorker

Camille Bordas Reads Saul Bellow

May 1, 2022·53 min·4 clips
Camille Bordas describes how Saul Bellow's prose about Chicago's snow changed her entire perspective on the city.
Deborah Treisman interviews author Camille Bordas about Saul Bellow's 1955 story 'A Father to Be,' exploring its stream-of-consciousness narrative, themes of fatherhood and masculinity, and Bellow's descriptive prowess. They discuss the story's exclusion from Bellow's collected works, its modern relevance regarding gender roles, and the challenges of writing internal monologue.

As heard by us

A sharp Bellow reading about fatherhood anxiety, family resemblance, and one man's comic slide into existential alarm.

Saul Bellow's "A Father to Be" arrives as a compact, unsettled comedy of dread, framed by Deborah Treisman as Camille Bordas's choice from the magazine's archive. Its force lies in Rogan's private panic.

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