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 Sulphablad, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm pleased to have as my guest, Cam Nunn, the author most recently of Tijuana Straits.

He is the author as well of tapping the source.

Let me get this in the right order.

Unassigned Territory, Pomona Queen, the Dogs of Winter.

And this book represents what's said to be the latest entry in a genre he's created himself called serf noir. Do you feel comfortable

with that name? And did you invent it? Surf noir. Well, you know, those are the kind of things,

those are the kind of names that people come up with that talk about books, you know,

that as a writer, it's not much use to one. So I don't think about it in those

terms, but I guess I can live with it, you know. But what is true about the books is that somehow

or other, Southern California seems to have inspired a certain kind of writing, whether that's Raymond Chandler or Ross

McDonald. It's as if the place inspires a certain kind of ominous writing. And you've mentioned

that your characters depend almost entirely upon place, that you know the place before you know your characters.

You know, in part that the whole noir movement and writing kind of grew out of a response

to all of that boosterism, all of that, it was a writing against the myth.

You know, a lot of those early noir writers were disenchanted Hollywood script writers

who had, you know, come out here expecting to find the good life and instead found this, you know, rabidly anti-union town, found racism.

You know, they looked into the shadows and saw the dark stuff, and they were compelled to write against the myth.

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