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 and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, I'm very happy to have as my guest, Martha McPhee.

Her newest book is Dear Money, published by Houghton Mifflin-Harkort.

In the course of the novel,

its heroine, India Palmer, a critically acclaimed novelist struggling to make ends meet,

is transformed into a wildly successful and rich bond trader. Now, India has a remarkable

experience.

Out of the blue, as the book likes to say, onto a beach arrives a yellow biplane and in that

biplane is a mortgage bonds trader who says, I bet that I could make you a top mortgage bond sales

person, trader, within 18 months.

And our India has had enough.

I mean, it doesn't seem fair to her anymore. And what's more, she's gone through a

whole period of her life, practically living like Madame Bolvery, looking, robbing Peter to pay Paul,

looking for money, owing, telling lies. She's willing to do anything, and she's willing to surrender.

She's just enough art.

Well, I had a lot of fun with that.

You know, I really did want to write a book that would be fun for me to engage with.

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