Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without glutenberg?

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we need without books?

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

Two very interesting writers join us. Those are Zach Smith and Hal Lynn. Along with them, my associate, Sean Sullivan,

is going to join us because really he's been a big introductory force to getting me to know the work of some of the younger writers

who I might not have necessarily encountered on my own.

Today, our focus is going to be on Tal Lin.

I think that his new novel, Leave Society, is a really well-written book.

I've watched Tao progress from very early work, which was playful, improvisational, and somewhat demonstratively childish, to,

what dare I say? He's growing up. It's an astounding thing, but leave society, like Taipei before it.

These are real novels.

I wonder, do you identify now, Tau, as an adult?

I think I do, yeah.

Even though I like to stay connected with the spirit of children and what they represent, I am trying to think of myself as an adult.

But also, I feel like in our society, maybe everyone is struggling to be an adult.

I guess it depends on your definition of adult.

What's your definition of it?

My definition of an adult writer is someone who's paying attention to narrative time and to characters developing over narrative time,

and to figuring out how to express that. Lots of people think it's easy, but managing shape,

...