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 am in a state of great, well, can I say it, pleasure because my guest is Tony Morrison. It's been a long dream of mine to be able to

talk to her face to face. We've spoken together an interview on the phone before this, but this is

the first time we've met. Her new novel, A Mercy, has just been published by Knopf.

It is to my mind an extraordinarily distilled work, one whose nature you can't begin to describe

until you reach its final page.

It's a novel that proceeds by an extraordinary design,

and the design of this novel is to let itself be complete, and completion is a subject

of the novel, as it is for people as well. It is not complete until you've witnessed the entire

book. She is a Nobel Prize you've witnessed the entire book.

She is a Nobel Prize winner, and the author, of course, you know, one cannot leave out a single book.

They've all been steps in an extraordinary and public progression.

The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love,

and now a Mercy. Now, this book does seem to proceed to organize very rich, historical,

and complex materials.

What it does, many people talk about American diversity

as if it were invented in the last 25 years.

...