You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

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

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

Today, my guest is the novelist and poet Charlie Smith.

He's the author most recently of a novel called Chimney Rock from Henry Holt

and of a book of poems called The Palms, which was recently published by Norton. His other books

of fiction include a trio of novellas, Crystal River, and three novels, The Lives of the Dead,

Shine, Hawk, and Canaan. The other two books of poetry are indistinguishable from the darkness

and Red Roads. Well, first of all, I want to talk indistinguishable from the darkness and red roads.

Well, first of all, I want to talk about, I guess, what people like John Hawks and Nathaniel West and Flannery O'Connor have called the topology of violence, because while most of chimney rock takes place in Southern California and Mexico, the place named in its title is, of course, not here, but where?

San Nebraska.

Right.

And it seemed to me to be a metaphor

for what is left after everything gets whittled away

or eroded or scar.

It's a hinge place.

It's a formation of rock.

And so it seemed to me that this book,

like other things of yours, is the construction of a place of ultimacy, not like Los Angeles, but a place that you would like, in fact,

to see.

...