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. FromCRW santa monica i'm michael silverblatt

and this is bookworm i'm very happy to have as my guest today joyce carroll oates whose new novel

missing mom has recently been published by echo and imprint of Harper Collins.

Her other recent books include The Falls, which has come out in paperback this season, as well as a collection of views and reviews titled Uncensored.

This novel seemed so extraordinarily moving to me in the narrowness of its frame,

but in particular the kind of gentle surrealism of its opening chapter as at a dinner family speak of food, recipes,

unattractive haircuts, that sense of people speaking at length about things that won't justify the length,

almost as if the book is providing a model that its heroine, Nikki, is going to learn how to live in.

She's been rebellious.

She appears at this Mother's Day dinner

with a punk cod and purple hair,

spiky.

She knows it's a rock rebellion style

of an earlier time.

And she is going to,

during the course of this novel,

become capable of doing the things her mother has done,

baking bread, making everyone welcome, and there's almost a simultaneous relief

...