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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, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, I'm, well, you know, you'll laugh at me, but I'm quaking with excitement, because

my guest is James McCourt. He's one of my favorite writers. Being a favorite over years, he's become a friend. Being a friend,

I'm astonished that the first volume of three, a true literary event, now Voyagers,

the Night Sea Journey, has been published by Turtle Point Press.

Now, I guess we need to tell you a bit of a story, as the book does at its beginning, too.

When James McCourt began his publication history, it was in 1972 with a story in the legendary and justly

so literary magazine called the New American Review. And from time to time they would choose

a brand new writer, put the story by that writer as the cover story, and that

was the year when James McCorts, Mardugort's Mardugorgeous, spelled in the Polish, it looks

as if it's unpronounceable, but it's Mardu gorgeous.

It appeared, and everyone talked about it.

Susan Sontag went wild for it.

Opera singers, performers of all sorts. It captured the glitter and the cunning of opera, of New York opera, of nightlife in New York, of an opening

...