Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed, for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Sulfroblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm lucky to have as my guest, Norman Mailer, who has put together a book called

The Spooky Art, Some Thoughts on Writing.

I recently had occasion to hear Norman Mailer introduced

as a man who needs no introduction, and then it suddenly occurred to me that this usually means

that the person isn't ready to make the introduction, and that nowadays in American culture,

the people who most need introduction are the people who need no introduction

because they've been given no introduction for several years. You know, it's as if they're in their

limbo years. Norman Mailer, the author of The Naked and the Dead, who managed in the course

of writing many novels and works of nonfiction to make what he would write,

the mere fact that he would write it, an event in itself. In other words, there was a centrality

to what was happening to him on the page and in life that galvanized attention.

It was then a study of his to say, what galvanizes attention?

Why is attention galvanized?

And he made a full study of charisma in history and culture.

His books during that period included the armies of the night.

Why are we in Vietnam?

Miami and the Siege of Chicago,

...