A family’s trip to Africa changes everything in this excerpt from Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Good Squad. This entire program is given over to the single story “Safari,” in which a very successful Hollywood record producer takes his young son and daughter along on an African safari, accompanied by his new young girlfriend and an assortment of other vivid characters.

In the course of the trip acts are committed and decisions made that mark the characters for the rest of their lives. “Safari” is told from multiple points of view, notes author and editor Hannah Tinti (The Good Thief). “Jennifer Egan pulls it off fantastically because she stays on the shared emotional pulse that runs through all the characters.”  Tinti and host Isaiah Sheffer spoke to Jennifer Egan about the story; listen to that interview here.

The reader is Hope Davis, who regularly adds her strong but delicate shadings to SHORTS fiction, and whose film credits include About Schmidt, Hearts in Atlantis, and American Splendor.

(This program first aired during our 2010 season.) LISTEN TO THE SHOW