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 Sulfurbladden.

Welcome this afternoon to Bookworm.

Today my guest is Norman Rush,

whose first book,

A Book of Short Stories, Whites,

came out a couple of years ago.

Many a quorum called for a novel.

I hope he gives us a novel,

said critics, and soon enough there was,

there is one called mating, also from Knopf, and, you know, a great entry into the field because,

while it's a big novel, almost 500 pages, it's also a hugely

comic novel. And I really can't think of, you know, most of our comic novelists have been

shrimp-y book writers, you know.

Terry Southern, for example. Yeah.

As if comedy could only be sustained for a slivers space.

And, you know, this brings us back to the great Victorian days where the maintenance of a voice, you know.

I wanted to do an expansive commodious comic novel.

And in a way, I was led to the length that the novel took by the character.

...