Terry Gross

And nowhere to file it in bookstores.

Put it in the Julian Barnes section.

You've written like 27 books or 26 books.

So I want you to read an excerpt.

And you mentioned that what you have is a rare form of blood cancer.

And I said, that makes you unique.

So you actually have a passage related to that that I'd like you to read.

I should interrupt here and say you got sick just as the COVID lockdown was starting.

So how much relief does it give you to know that you can't blame yourself for this disease?

It wasn't your behavior that brought it on.

No one can be finger pointing, like finger wagging at you saying, I told you, you should have stopped smoking.

You wrote a memoir about grief for your wife.

In this book, I could say some of it is about grief for your own body.

And yet, you've kind of lived in fear of death your whole life.

You thought about death a lot.

You've been afraid of death.

And although your blood cancer isn't a death sentence, it's not going to help you live longer either.

You know, it will make your body more vulnerable.

So it's interesting that you felt detached when you got the diagnosis and not fearful.

The third sentence of your new book, Departures, says that your interest tends toward the ghoulish and the extreme.