You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hi, this is Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, my guest in the studio is Stephen Pett, the author of a new novel called Sirens,

which has just been published in the vintage contemporary series from Random House.

It's an unusual novel set in the southwest of America.

Stephen was previously the author of one book called Poupet of Bones, a book of poetry,

that came out from Morrow in, what was it, 1975?

That's right.

That's 15 years.

Has this been a 15-year project, Sirens?

No, it's been an eight-year project, though.

And so for seven years, I was writing stories.

I wrote another novel, a long novel, Pioneer Saga, Utah Pioneer Saga, that is still in a drawer that needs a lot of attention.

I don't get those pioneers off the trail.

Now, the novel has, as its pretext, an easy to say, what we recall in the film business, an easy to pitch idea,

a young man, Carlos Cade, comes back to avenge himself on a childhood friend, now the governor of Utah,

who had, when they were both children,

inadvertently killed a playfellow of theirs.

Now, I've noticed that when poets turn to novel writing, there is some tendency to turn

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