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 KS.O.W. Santa Monica.

I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm speaking to Zachary Lussar, who's the author of Sway.

It's published by Little Brown.

And it's a novel, I guess you could say, about the dark side of the 60s.

It takes up certain of the figures, Bobby Bozely, who was arrested as a murderer, Charles Manson,

Kenneth Anger, who made the incredible films,

Scorpio Rising, an invocation of my demon brother and inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.

Am I getting those titles, more or less?

Yes, good, I wouldn't want to mangle an anger title.

And as well as the Rolling Stones.

And when I mentioned these figures, listeners who live through the 60s will connect the dots

to seeing that these were all figures who were associated in one way or another

with what was thought to be satanic worship or some kind of relationship to the devil,

and indeed the period was dominated by those words, sex,

drugs, and rock and roll, which were thought to be emissaries of the devil.

And so I think the title, as well as being the title of one of the Rolling Stones songs,

...