Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books? From KSingerW and KCRW and KCRW.

I'm Michael Silverblad and this is Bookworm.

I'm here today talking to Richard Ford for the second week in a row about his impressive

new novel, Canada, because I think it's a culmination and a new direction

of what he's been doing in his unforgettable career so far, a career that includes the

Paskham trilogy, one volume of which won the Pulitzer Prize, extraordinary award-winning short stories.

It's a great trajectory.

Now, this book in a certain way is a new direction in that when you were entering your recognition phase of publishing.

You were publishing with Gary Fisket John as your editor, and it was Fisket John and Ford.

It was, you know, part of a certain kind of, not just duo, but triumvirate or quartet.

There was a certain noise about that, the entrance of fiction.

Now, you've changed publishers after years and changed editors.

And I wondered what initiated that?

Well, I mean, Gary is a wonderful editor, hands-on, which I really required, really love.

I think maybe finally he just needed some new blood. I didn't necessarily think that I did.

He was certainly not holding me back in any way.

We just disagreed about what I guess they would call

...