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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. This is Michael Silverblatt, and my guest today is Mark

Richard. He's the author most recently of a book of short stories called Charity, the author

previously of a novel, Fish Boy, and a book of stories, his first, The Ice at the

Bottom of the World. The charity book, the major subject of our conversation today, is available

from Doubleday in hardcover. Fishboy is now in paperback, as is the first book of short stories.

Now, I wanted to begin with the title.

What made you want a book of stories called Charity?

Charity is the title of the story that I felt connected with in the book the most.

Growing up, the hospitals in which I spent a lot of time were called charity hospitals,

and you would often find yourself on charity ward.

So for me, charity means a lot more than the dictionary definition of the word.

Now, when you talk about that, the charity word,

you're talking about something that to most Americans and most readers is a decency in concept.

And when you've written the stories taking place there,

like Birds for Christmas or Charity itself, there's a kind of hilarious Dickens' quality

to these children there who are variously tailed and deformed.

But in particular, it's a Scrooge-like Christmas Carol scene that you go off and construct there.

What is, is Dickens a figure for you of considerable influence?

I love Dickens, and I read all of Dickens, and I found...

When I do describe charity wards, I do describe them as Dickensian, and the appeal is that you have human beings who are sort of stripped down to the

...