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?

Hi, this is Mike Silverblatt, and this is bookworm. We're here today in the studio

with Thomas Sanchez, whose new novel, Miles Zero, has just come out from Alfred A. Knopf. His first

novel was hailed as a masterpiece. It was called Robert Rabbit Boss. And until recently, it has been

out of print, just recently returned to print from vintage.

Miles Zero is a book that tries to encompass a great deal of recent American and post-American history,

say. It's a book that Thomas Sanchez has lived with for 10 years. You describe the process of making

the book as originally a conjuring. What do you mean by that? Well, the conjuring of a novel has to do with

not knowing so much how you will achieve the end of the

journey, but knowing exactly where you want to end up, but not how you're going to get there.

So that is the original conjuring, but you don't understand the magic of the language that

will transport you to the finality. It's kind of interesting because this book, a book of 10 years,

reminds me in many ways of Under the Volcano,

which is a book that grew very much by accretion.

Draft after draft, and galley after galley,

Malcolm Lowry's biographer's report,

would come back and still he'd want to do yet

another draft of the book. Did this book pray on you and grow on you in that way?

Well, absolutely. As far as draft after draft is concerned and having an editor suggest

...