The New Yorker: Fiction · The New Yorker

David Means Reads Lorrie Moore

August 1, 2023·1 hr·5 clips
David Means explains why Lorrie Moore's pandemic story still feels like news that stays news.
David Means reads and discusses Lorrie Moore's 2020 story 'FaceTime,' which depicts a daughter's FaceTime calls with her dying father during the early pandemic. The conversation explores how Moore blends humor, grief, and technology to capture the isolation of that moment, with insights into autofiction, family dynamics, and the story's lasting resonance.

As heard by us

A precise, anxious reading of remote family love under hospital lights and pandemic distance.

David Means's reading of Lorrie Moore's "FaceTime" turns a hospital call into a tense chamber piece: a daughter waits at her computer, fields anxious instructions from family, and sees her father reduced to oxygen tubing, bright lights, and the uncertain mercy of a nurse holding…

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