Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without booms?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd. It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books?

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

Today, my guest is Jennifer Egan.

You know, I've been reading Jennifer's work since before I had a show. I can't pretend to you

that she's new to me or a surprise to me. I've always loved it. One morning, I was woken by my

wonderful, brilliant critic friend, Pauline Kale.

Pauline wrote weekly for the New Yorker eventually,

and she read a story called Why, China.

And she said, Michael, you have to read this.

This is a first-rate story, and it was a terrific story.

But since that time, she has written, well, a novel, The Invisible Circus, came first,

and then the book of stories called Emerald City, and then the Keep,

and then the magnificent Pulitzer Prize winning a visit from the Goon Squad,

and now a novel called Manhattan Beach.

And I thought we should do something special, because Jennifer Egan's mode of revelation is extremely surprising and complex, and I decided that we should only talk about plot in Manhattan Beach up to around the first two chapters, because I really want to talk about how things are hidden

more than how they're revealed.

And I think it makes for very exciting reading.

I think the first thing to be known is that this book takes place where,

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