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.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael Silverblatt.

My guest today is Lee Smith.

The occasion is the publication of a new novella called The Christmas Letters from the

Agonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

I wanted to talk to Lee Smith for some time because she seems to me to be an unusual case among

contemporary writers. This is to say that the more she likes a character, the better she writes

about them. So it's nice to be in the company of these people, and fortunately there are a lot of books.

Most recently, The Christmas Letters, but two books of short stories. Me and My Baby View the Eclipse and Cakewalk. Novels. Saving Grace. My favorite, the devil's dream, fair and tender ladies, family linen, oral history, Black Mountain Breakdown, Fancy Strutt,

Something in the Wind,

and the last day the dog bushes bloomed.

A university press recently republished

the last day the dog bushes bloomed.

I was happy to get it in the mail,

but I have my trusty paperback, I think, from 1968.

That's right.

And tell me about the constructing of novels out of interest in the characters.

Well, I don't even know where to start because it's something I have done literally since I was a child I grew up

...