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?

Hi, this is Michael Silverbladden. Welcome to Bookworm. Regular listeners

will know that one of our favorite guests is Alan Gorgainis, who's here with us again today,

to celebrate the publication of his book, White People, a book of short stories, his second book

after oldest living Confederate widow tells all.

With us here also is my associate producer, Melinda Siegel, and admirer of Alan Gorghenus.

Some will remember a previous interview she did with him.

And it's to start with the subject of short stories after a mammoth

novel. These have been composed over a period of how long? The first was started in 1972,

and the last was finished in 89. So it's, this is your life. This is 20 years of my best work.

I've published 22 stories in magazines,

and these are the best 11 stories that I've written, I think.

Some of us who had read about all of those deleted pages

from Oldest Living Confederate Widow dream that we'd find more Lucy here, but we don't.

Will they ever crop up?

Well, I think in life and art, nothing is absolutely lost, Michael.

You know you make these transpositions from being a log to being the smoke from a log.

I have whole excerpts and whole chapters that I want to use in other context.

One from the novel that I didn't use was a character named Jessica Helms, who will be familiar

...