You're invited to Summer Scamper June 21st. The 5K Kids Fun Run and Family Festival supports

patients and families at Stanford Medicine Children's Health. Visit somerscapper.org to sign up and use

code KQED for $10 off. Hey everyone, it's Olivia Culpo and I can't wait to tell you all about

Abukrami's new summer collection.

All their new dresses and colorful swim feel perfect for a Euro summer and Abercrombie has a new 100% linen collection. It's the perfect mix of looking put together and elevated with the lightness

and comfort of linen. Shop Abercrombie this summer in the app, online, and in stores.

Thank you. Shop Abercrombie this summer in the app, online, and in stores. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Dave Eggers' latest novel, Contrapasto, is about artists. Yes, it's about art, but it's really about artists.

Who's an artist?

And does it require that you, as we would have said in my school, can draw?

The novel revolves around the remarkable relationship between cricket, a painter, and Olympia,

an art world creature, who meet when neither is anything but a kid on the

plains of Indiana. Over six decades follows their twists and turns as they try to figure out

each other what art actually is and how an artist can make a living and make a life. I savored this book

dipping into the world of these characters over the last couple weeks, and when I finished it yesterday, I found my eyes filled with tears. I love a novel that reminds us how long

life is and how powerful the persistence of being can be. Though all our biological parts might

be replaced, the self remains and is not diminished, but enlarged. Dave Eggers, thanks for this book. Welcome before him. Wow. Well done, Alexis. I know that's, I can go home. I sort of took care of it. Yeah, there we go. That's it. That's going to be downhill from here. So, you know, I know where the novel starts in the book, right? It starts in Indiana, a small town.

But it also felt to me as I went through this book, like, it actually started for you somewhere else.

Like you encountered some artists with little bits of the main character, cricket in them, or like, what scene did you actually get down first from this book?

Oh, that's a good one.

Yeah, I don't write in order.

So I always write scenes just, I mean, I think it must have been 10, 15 years ago.

...