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 have the great pleasure in honor of speaking to Tony Morrison about her novel,

A Mercy.

We've discussed the backgrounds to this novel, historical, some of them biblical, some of them literary,

but no matter how much you discuss background, what remains to discuss is the literary resonance of a book,

how it's achieved, and what it comes to mean.

Now I believe that a mercy is a very carefully shaped novel, a novel that does not give up

its meanings and its secrets until you reach its final page.

How was it shaped?

Wanting to have a young black girl enslaved on a journey, surrounding her with people upon whom she depended.

But once I had her voice and I really heard how she sounded.

The question was whether she should tell that whole story or not.

And then I realized, no, she wouldn't know.

And also I couldn't have her evolve that way,

besides she was talking in the first person.

And always she spoke in the present tense.

And that I liked and shaped carefully

...