Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories

When did you first read the story?

Um, I read the story when it came out in a book called Our Story Begins, which is the, um, new and selected stories, and it was one of the stories towards the end of that.

And, uh, I read that book when it came out.

Mm-hmm.

He was getting something from her, ready or not, walking into the rain as if it weren't raining at all.

That was Colm Tóibín reading "Awaiting Orders" by Tobias Wolff.

The story appeared in The New Yorker in July of 2005 and was included in Wolff's collection, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories, which was published in 2008, as well as in the 2006 Best American Short Stories anthology.

So Colm, Morse is someone who wants to have rules and orders in his life.