Hear James Joyce’s Great Short Story “The Dead,” Performed by Cynthia Nixon & Colum McCann — openculture.com

“The Dead” is the last – and most memorable – short story in James Joyce’s first book, Dubliners. Set during a New Year’s feast in 1904, the story focuses on Gabriel Conroy, a plump, bespectacled young man who is painfully aware of his own social ineptitude. As he navigates one minor faux pas after the next – making a poorly received joke here, clumsily parrying a barbed joke there – he comes to realize over the course of the party that his beautiful, distant wife has a past he never knew.

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