The Stand-Ins

09/19/24 • 58 min

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Meg Wolitzerpresents a show of stories about replacements and stand-ins. While we tend to crave the original, sometimes a substitute can bring more happiness than the “real” thing. In Steve Almond’s “A Happy Dream,” read by Phil LaMarr, a young man assumes a new identity in pursuit of love. In “A Brief Note on the Translation of Winter Women, Written by the Collective Dead, Translated by Amal Ruth,” a writer speaks for those who have passed. The “real” author is Rivers Solomon, and the reader is TL Thompson. In “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” by Alexander Weinstein, a robot child and its human family learn about love all at once. The reader is Tony Hale.

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short_stories, short_fiction, symphony_space, books, life, meg wolitzer, Carlos Greaves, Santina Fontana, Dylan Marron, Sarah Messanotte, Willa Cather, Patricia Clarkson, humor, cartoons, family

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A Full Plate

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Meg Wolitzer presents two favorite Selected Shorts works in which food and nourishment figure both literally and symbolically. The narrator of Haruki Murakami’s “The Year of Spaghetti” seems to be just sharing pasta recipes, but it’s the recipe for assuaging loneliness that may elude him. The reader is Sopranos alum Michael Imperioli. And unusual family dynamics shape Amy Bloom’s “Love is Not a Pie,” performed by Hope Davis. We also share a discussion of this work by the mother and daughter book club organized by our frequent reader Rita Wolf and her daughter Anjeli.