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

Today, I am very honored to have as my guest, James McCourt.

Now, I know that listeners frequently feel that I'm providing a competition of non-parrelles, but I truly believe

that James McCord is one of the few living geniuses of fiction. It began, the spell was cast

with his first book, Mardugorgias, which was published, oh, the first chapter in the New American Review,

a landmark issue of a literary magazine.

It came out as a book from Farras Stras and Cheru.

It's been republished by the New York Review Press and is available again a cult classic, but I say that knowing that it is that by default.

I think it's a great classic in the creation of the almost supernatural identity of a star, of a diva.

And this identity has been one that McCourt has been exploring in book after book.

Most recently, he's followed his actress, Kay Wayfaring,

and has published Trump Knopf, Wayfaring at Waverly in Silver Lake.

It's a magnificent book, Seven Stories, Each of them inspired and responding to one of the seven

deadly sins and what could be more natural in Hollywood,

in Los Angeles, in other words, in Babylon,

that the story should take such profound looks at sin and conquering sins.

There's such an extraordinary feel that one has entered a special kingdom when one reads

James McCourt that the first I wanted to ask him, the first thing I wanted to ask him is how

much did you know when you began of this kingdom

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