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?

Hi, this is Michael Sulfurblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

My guest today is Matthew Stadler, whose second novel, called The Dissolution of Nicholas

D. has just been published by Scribner's.

He's the author as well of Landscape Memory, which was his first book.

Just... well of landscape memory, which was his first book. Just to see, what kind of book were you writing when you wrote Nicholas D?

How did you describe it?

How would I describe it while I was writing?

Yes.

When I was asked then, I said I was writing a book about a man in a Dutch swamp because

it began for me with that.

I lived in Holland for a while and I thought it would be interesting to find out what

happens when a man tries to map actually an estuary called Dendullard.

So that's how I described it for a long time, even though as any reader can tell,

it evolved quite far from that origin.

But what kind of book did you describe it as?

A novel.

You didn't say, you know, Kafkaesque or a novel of brooding intensity. No, no, those

phrases never have come from my lips. I guess I, no, I don't think I ever went much further than

...