Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

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'm happy to have as my guest, John Haskell, who is the author of three books.

The most recent Out of My Skin has come out as what's known as a paperback

original from Faris Strauss and Giroux. His other books were published by them as well. I am

not Jackson Pollock and American Purgatorio. Now, I noticed that out of my skin has a lot of references to paradise in it.

They're coming to California looking for paradise.

And since the last book was Purgatorio, is it the Paradise volume of a trilogy?

My editor said not to stress that fact, but yes, I was thinking of it in terms of the three of the three books,

kind of maybe after the fact.

I am not Jackson Pollock, which started out as stories sometimes said aloud or performed.

One of them, I think, was originally called Hell is a Million Degrees.

So it actually had, it had, and I had in the back of my mind, that idea.

So yes.

Well, I had kind of thought so.

What I said in the back of my mind about I am not Jackson Pollock is that hell, at least

according to Sard, is other people.

And, you know, the stories in that book offer famous lives to try on for size.

...