Sam Brigger

So what was your reading behavior like?

Were you the kind of reader that would read over everything else, like doing your schoolwork, seeing friends, eating?

In that memoir, you write, still, when I reach for a book, I am reaching for an equilibrium.

I am reading to banish pity and brittle bones.

I am reading to evade guilt and avoid consequences.

That made me think of your sister.

And I was wondering if you feel survivor's guilt over her death or even when she was living, did you feel some guilt because of your healthiness?

We haven't spoken about your novel Light Perpetual, but that imagines what would have been the lives of five children who were actually killed by a bomb during the Blitz.

And I was wondering if in that book, although she's not a character, whether you were –

Also imagining what your sister's life would have been like if she had lived.

Well, Francis Buffett, I want to thank you so much for talking with me today.

Thank you for having me.

Francis Spufford's new book is called None Such.

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Nesper.

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Sam Brigger.

That's a scene from Jury Duty with Ronald Gladden and my guest, James Marsden.