You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read?

Hi, this is Michael Sulferblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

Today my guest is Jim Harrison, the author most recently of Julep, but author as well, shall

we do them in order of Wolf, a Good Day to Die, Farmer, Legends of the Fall, Warlock,

Sundog, Dalva, the woman lit by fireflies, and eight collections of poetry, most recently the theory and

practice of rivers. The new book, Julep, is a collection of novellas, three of them, and it begins with a

quote from Rilke, which is when the wine is bitter, become the wine.

Now, I took this to be a statement that when the culture, American culture, becomes bitter

or sour, the writer has to reflect it.

Well, that's partly, I think, too, what I meant in any culture addicted to the most banal

psychologists and so on, what people don't realize is that if you're in a state of anguish, you have to go through the anguish.

There isn't a quick fix to get out of the anguish.

And so when the wine is bitter, you have to become the wine.

Did these three novellas go together for you thematically, or are they more randomly?

This is more, say, random than the first book of novellas, but in order, Julep.

For instance, I don't think I've ever written a novella that I haven't thought of for three or four years.

That's just my work process.

And both Julep and the beige Dolorosa, we're sort of conceived at the same time.

So I'd have to keep different notebooks.

...