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 my guest is Alan Greganus.

He's the author, most recently, of a collection of four novellas called The Practical

Heart. It's been published by Knopf. And he is the author as well, of course, of the oldest

living Confederate widow tells all white people and plays well with others. It seemed to me that more than the stories in white people, the novellas in this book,

are linked thematically.

No one's been saying this directly, but it seems to me that the relation between an author and his characters is very much at the center of this book and what kinds of truth a person can tell other people before they turn away from him asking for no more truth.

I think one of the things that the book has to offer is a reconsideration of sainthood.

I originally thought of calling the book Recent American Saints.

A secular sainthood, Michael, I think of St. Sebastian perforated with arrows and staring

upward and not a hair out of place.

And I'm very attracted to the stories of virtuous people who get into terrible trouble by

being good. Those people interest me much more than bad people who

get away with it. Good people who don't are fascinating to me. And especially people who adopt another

person who's not necessarily a direct relative and lead that person into the mysteries of the world.

So it seems to me that each of the characters in this collection has some kind of wisdom

to impart often to a young person at the center of their cosmology.

...