From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

Welcome to the Treatment, the Home Edition. I'm Elvis Mitchell.

And what can you say here in early 2022 about a novel that in its early section includes

the line with a virus you could inoculate, you could isolate, you could watch physical symptoms,

but this, this was something here to fore unseen in human existence, and, a collective surrender.

And that's the opening of the book.

The book is Anthem.

My guest is Noah Hawley, who was last here, for the terrific last season of Farago.

He's given us such shows going from the Unusuals to Legion.

And this book goes from the slave amendment to the philosophy of biologist Edward Wilson.

Of course, the author, again, of Anthem, is my guest, Noah Hawley.

Noah, it's a pleasure to have you back.

Thanks for having me.

It's incredible because I can't talk to you about the book and not ask how much as influenced by the era in which we're living now because it's full of stuff like

that. Yeah, I mean, I just honestly said to tell a story about people who do things and I thought,

well, when is it set? And then in deciding that it was set in our contemporary America or in our

near future, I was forced to ask, well, what does our near future look like?

And then that became this huge dive into, you know, where we are and how we got here and, and, you know,

the reality that that we, you know, we talk about polarization, but really what we have is to Americas.

What's described in the book is the kingdom of Wall Street and the kingdom of Main Street.

And, you know, one is a sort of worships the God of reason and the other lives more emotionally and instinctually.

And, you know, in order to tell a story set in

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