John Wilson

And it's interesting you called them ghosts earlier because I thought of them as sort of dead souls, restless spirits, those sort of things.

On This Cultural Life, George Saunders, my guests choose the influences and experiences that have had the biggest impact on their own creativity.

And your first choices for this programme are your parents.

You were born in Texas but grew up in Oak Forest, Illinois.

What was home life, earliest memories of home life?

And you say your mother was from Texas.

I think I'd read that you went back to Texas a lot during the holidays.

So how important was that sort of Texan influence on your sense of identity?

making the best of a situation when sometimes it's not going well.

I mean, it reminds me of what you said about your father being held up at gunpoint, but it's a good story.

I've heard you refer to as the kindness guy.

Well, that's an issue.

And that speech you're referring to, I think it was at a graduation ceremony, wasn't it, when you were keynote speaker, was called Failures of Kindness, I think, wasn't it?

And you say it followed you around.

Were you aware that you got this reputation as the kindness guy?

Not a bad thing to be associated with.

Well, this leads us very neatly to your latest novel, Vigil, which again leads us into the spirit world as a spectral guide is sent to help a dying man.

He is her charge.

And she's helping him pass to the other side.

And the problem is he is...