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.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

Today my guest is John Edgar Wideman, the author most recently of the cattle killing published

by Houghton Mifflin.

He is the editor as well of this year's Best American Short Stories, 1996.

The cattle killing seems to me to be Wydeman's densest and most complex book. The initial metaphor

that struck me for discussion when I finished it was the idea of transmission. The book begins

with an author leaving a writing conference full of narratologists

to cross Philadelphia to go to his father's house,

which is filled with patches of stagnant water,

with the intention of reading to him alone.

And the book ends with a letter from the author's son,

giving a review of sorts of the book and adding a letter.

The question of who is telling the story, how is it transmitted, and who is listening

seems to be central to this novel. Can you speak about that?

I think that not only is it central to the novel in precisely the ways you've described as a framing device, but it's central to my concept of love, which for me is one of the overarching pieces of the structure and the theme that I want, one of the themes that I want to explore,

because in some ways my unnamed 18th century preacher, itinerate preacher, who is the central

character, he is like Shahrazad. It's a Shahrazad like story.

He's in love with a woman.

...