Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, it's a rhetorical question, sir,

but where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, it's my pleasure to talk to a first novelist who actually lives in Los Angeles, where

Bookworm is from.

Her name is Rebecca Sacks, S-A-C-K-S, and she's written a book called City of a Thousand Gates.

This is the first time since I was very young when my mother gave me a copy of

James Michner's novel, The Source. This is the first time in years that I've read a novel

that's set in Israel that is setting about, rolling up its sleeves,

to talk about the relationships between the Palestinians and the Israelis,

between the Americans who moved to Israel and the Arabs to look at marriages in which people come from

different parts of Israel or the Arab world, and to see the complexity, the enormous complexity of the relations among these characters

and how they are, in a sense, predicted by the nature of Israeli geography and Israeli politics.

How many characters do you say are? of Israeli geography and Israeli politics.

How many characters do you say are in the city of a thousand gates?

Thank you for having me. This is very exciting.

In the cast of characters, which as trying to be generous to the reader,

so there is a cast of characters at the beginning of the book,

...