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'm really delighted to have as my guest.

For the first time in quite a few years, Diane Johnson,

whose new novel, Lulu and Marrakesh, has been published by Dutton.

For many different reasons, I think I've read all of Diane Johnson and not just in preparation for the show.

She was, while still a student at UCLA, she published her first novel, Fair Game, and I believe Loving Hands at Home as well.

The novels included one of the first sort of paranoid African-American heroines in the shadow nose,

a group of terrorists living in... African-American heroines in the shadow nose.

A group of terrorists living in the underground were the heroes and heroines of lying low.

She wrote a biography of Dashal Hammett.

Also a lovely book called Lesser Lives about the set of wives around George Meredith, primarily Mrs. Meredith.

She's well known for the divorce, the marriage, and la fair. And now I was particularly excited when I saw the title Lulu and Marrakesh

because her books are thrillingly hard to describe in their tone,

but they handle what life is presenting as unclassifiably difficult to discuss.

Always.

And this book involves religion, terrorism, espionage, travel, as recently always, the naive American.

And I wondered if we could begin by talking about the tone.

I gathered that this book was particularly hard to find a tone for.

...