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 it's a great pleasure to have as my guest, Millard Kaufman,

who's written his first novel, Bowl of Cherries, which has been published by McSweeney's.

Now, I was recently in Santa Fe with Dave Eggers,

oh, around four or five months ago, and I asked him what his press, McSweeney's, was doing. And he said,

well, he have a wonderful book coming out. It's by a first-time writer. He's 90 years old. I said,

well, really?

But this 90-year-old, Millard Kaufman, it's a little bit of a misrepresentation.

Yes, it is his first novel, but he's also the screenwriter of Bad Day at Black Rock.

He did the adaptation of Raint Tree County. He's one of the

co-creators of Mr. Magoo. So at least the narrative imagination has been long with him. And this is

indeed the first novel. And why a novel at this point?

Well, I think, and I'll explore this with you, Michael, because I'm not quite sure,

but it seemed to me that there's a time when a man writing pictures is no longer available to that art craft mix, whatever you'd like to call it,

because the great majority of movies today are being written and directed, understandably,

for very young people. And the idea through the years has generated that the people who write and direct these

things should be as close as possible, as young as the audience.

...