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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, it's my great pleasure and honor to have as my guest, Dennis Cooper.

Those of you who have been listening for the last several weeks have heard shows with Amy Gersler and with Jack Skelly that address the years at Beyond Baroque in Venice,

and Dennis was perhaps the primary organizer of Beyond Baroque during that period.

Dennis brought a whole sensibility to the organization. Dennis Cooper has a new book.

It's published by Soho House. It's called, I Wished. It's a hundred and twenty-five pages long. But if you're like me, you'll be reading it over and over and over again,

partially because one of the subjects is getting used to the idea of death.

In the book, there's a person who once lived named George Miles,

who was a central figure in each of Dennis's first five books known as the George Miles cycle.

Now, tell me about your relation with George Miles, Dennis.

He was a, when I met him when I was in, well, it was a private school, but it was like high school

years.

I was 15.

And he was the younger brother of a friend of mine.

And George was, at that point not, he became very, very bipolar and I have a lot of problems.

When he was not, but he was on LSD and his brother said to me like, you know, LSD, so can you go talk my brother down?

...