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 this is Bookworm.

Today I'm happy to have as my guest, Daisy Levine, who's the author most recently of a novel

called Francis Johnson.

It's published by a subscription press, and we'll be talking about what

that is, Clearcut Press. She's the author of two previous books. The first was My Horse and

Other Stories, which was published by Sun and Moon, and a novel called Dra-D-R-A-D-R-A-D-R-A-D-Sh, also from Sun and Moon.

Now, I think that to the extent that there is a new American writing,

and I think there is, it's one that takes the idea of the American dream,

not as a goal, but as something we have to wake up from.

And this writing describes the delusional systems of the dream, as if actual. It describes American life as a kind of dream scape.

I would include in this New American writing,

the work of Brian Evanson, of Lynn Tillman,

and my guest, Stacey Levine.

Now, because the work is so dreamlike itself,

I think people don't understand, perhaps,

that the attempt is to figure out what's real.

These narrators seem to be on some kind of quest for the real,

...