November 3, 2025 Issue

Pick of the Issue this week is Nathan Blum’s heartbreaking short story "Outcomes." It’s about two students at a college in Maine – a freshman who grew up nearby and a senior from New York City – who meet and form a connection. The freshman’s name is Nolan Everett and the senior’s is Heidi Lane. They meet at the climbing wall in the college rec center. Nolan works there as a belayer. Heidi registers to use the climbing wall. She’s never climbed before. Nolan teaches her. The relationship evolves. 

The story unfolds in eleven untitled segments, each a moment in the relationship. The first ten segments are told from Nolan’s point of view. The eleventh is told from Heidi’s perspective.

A theme runs lightly through the narrative – teaching. She guides him during sex. He teaches her how to belay. She teaches him about personal finances (she’s an economics major). He teaches her how to drive. Their personalities differ from each other. She knows who she is and what she wants to be. He lacks that kind of certainty. Blum says of him, “He has never really understood how people become who they become. For the most part, it seems like there’s not much you can do, and things just happen.” 

I identified with Nolan. I confess I teared up when I read segment eleven. The situation is truly heartrending. The fish hut scene at the end is inspired. The whole story is inspired – one of the best stories to appear in The New Yorker in the last twenty years.