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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without Gutenberg?

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we mean without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt.

This is Bookworm, and today my guest is John Banville, who I am welcoming to Los Angeles,

not for the first time,

but to Los Angeles as the home that Raymond Chandler reimagined for his sleuth, Philip Marlowe.

John Banville has been the respected winner of the Booker Prize for his novel The Sea.

He began to write as Benjamin Black, a series of novels involving a detective named Quirk,

and now he is subdividing again to become Raymond Chandler. His new book, The Black-Eyed

Blonde, is a Philip Marlowe mystery for those of us who may have been waiting really since

the long goodbye for the next arrival of Philip Marlow.

What led you here?

Yes, when you put it like that, I wonder if where on earth I got the nerve to try to step into Chandler's enormous shoes.

It was quite simple.

My agent, Ed Victor, who is a very energetic and creative man. He's always trying to think up

new things for his clients to do. He also represents the Raymond Chandler estate. He came to me

two or three years ago, asked me if I would write a Philip Marlow novel. I hesitated. I'm not sure why.

And then last summer I thought, yeah, I'll take on this adventure.

And I did.

...