Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

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.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and welcome to Bookworm.

You know, every year for our funding drive, I choose a book that I think is going to make our

listeners sit at the edge of their seats when they're reading and feel

an enormous desire to call 1-800-600 K-C-R-W because they'll want to get a copy of the

book. This year, to my surprise, the book is by Russell Banks. It's called The Reserve. And, you know, Russell Banks

has been called everything, you know, one of the great American novelists, one of the great

interrogators of class in America. But very rarely, I think, has he been called a master

storyteller. And the camps about this book, one camp,

the authors, compares it to Hemingways to Have and Have Not. Another, the editor, compares it, says

it's like Lady Chatterley's lover meets the aviator. This camp, your bookworm's camp, really

feels it's like a James M. Kame novel,

wound tight as a spring. And I'm curious, this is a book that depends on keeping the plot,

moving along at really a very suspenseful pace. Did you feel confident about your ability to do that?

I love noir fiction, and I love that mode of storytelling.

I love fable and allegory and realism intertwined, and certainly noir does that.

So, no, I felt quite confident doing it.

And I had, you know, from my point of view,

...