Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, it's my honor to have as my guest, Alice McDermott, whose new novel, after this,

has recently been published by Faris Strauss and Cheru.

She is one of the very few writers.

I've talked about her last four books on the show.

Usually I let a book or two even go between interviews,

but I find myself consistently fascinated by the intricacy and the beauty of her work.

And when I was reading the new novel after this, I found myself thinking that on every level,

the levels of event, of character, of even syntax, and time sequence, that there

was an attempt to mirror in the prose the nature of the Catholic Church and what has

happened to it, and that the work is in very minute and careful increments

so that I thought even the very first three words of the book, which are leaving the church, that the book,

strangely, is about leaving the church, not just leaving the church after having lit a candle

at a noon mass, but leaving the church in general.

The woman, Mary, has prayed, if not for anything else, just to be content,

and she comes out into a windstorm.

In the very next section,

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