The Thank you. Thank you. 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 Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

My guest this afternoon is David Michael Kaplan,

the author most recently of Skating in the Dark

and the Short Story Collection, Comfort. Skating in the Dark and the short story collection

Comfort. Skating in the Dark is a new book from Pantheon. I first ran into your work

when Raymond Carver chose that story Doe Season for the Best American Short Stories. Was that

your coming to public consciousness at that point?

Well, that was the first story that was published in a national magazine. It came out in the

Atlantic. So in that sense, it was a breakthrough story. But previous to that, I'd been published in the place where authors start off being published,

little magazines, literary reviews, that kind of thing.

It seems from that first book of short stories that there's a level of small unhappiness

that sees its fruition in the novel.

And I wondered if you had anything to say about unhappiness.

About unhappiness.

Unhappiness.

I've had my share.

But then everybody has.

Well, it seems to me to be such an important thing, you know.

I think the first thing a writer learns how to do is learn how not to avoid private grief, you know.

...