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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Zintberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, my guest is the remarkable Wayne Kastenbaum.

He has written his first book of short fiction.

It's called The Cheerful Scapegoat.

It's a book of fables.

It's published by Seymia Text.

I've been talking to and or thinking about Wayne Castenbaum

ever since his first major public book, which was called the Queen's Throat,

opera, homosexuality, and the mystery of desire. One day I heard him reading at a festival,

a description of Robert Falser, which, though brief, was such a good description,

that I couldn't stand not to have people hear it on my show, and he was on with a translator of Robert Valser,

Debbie Eisenberg, who had taught herself to read Robert Valser out loud, and Wayne Castenbaum doing his description of that predecessor and influence on Kafka, Robert

Valser, who was just then really being discovered in America.

Now, Wayne, this book, The Cheerful Scapegoat, is a book of fables.

Now, what do you mean here by fables?

...