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 Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm happy to have as my guest, Mary Gordon,

whose, well, the stories of Mary Gordon,

the collected stories thus far of Mary Gordon,

have been published by Pantheon books.

She is the author, of course, of final payments.

Temporary Shelter was her previous book of short stories.

She's written novels and essays.

And one of the things that I most admire about her

is that as you read her, you become aware

that those unbearable things of ordinary life,

that sometimes other writers invent plots to get around to make bearable.

These are still examinable.

The stories tell you that careful scrutiny makes the most ordinary moment between people, parsible, understandable, subtle,

and kind of, you know, glowing.

And so that the need for extravagant story is somehow simplified by questions of who is telling this story.

Where is the point of view?

...