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 I have as my guest, Clifford Chase.

He has written a first novel called Winky, published by Grove Press.

He's the author as well of the Hurry Up Song,

A Memoir of Losing My Brother,

and Queer 13, of which he was the editor.

It was lesbian and gay writers recall seventh grade.

Now, Winky is, to put it mildly, a very strange book,

and the least strange thing about it is its plot.

In it, a teddy bear comes to life and becomes eventually accused within a year of having life bestowed upon him or having attained life, he becomes accused of terrorism.

I would say that that is just the beginning of the strangeness of the book, but maybe you could

tell more about how odd it is to talk about this book to people and the looks you must get

when describing it.

Yeah, it was especially weird when I was working on it.

And also, I worked on it for 10 years, so it was especially weird to say that I had

worked, I had been working, you know, five, six, seven, whatever, nine years on a book about

my teddy bear.

...