Michael Silverblatt, 'genius' host of KCRW literary show 'Bookworm,' dies at 73

Michael Silverblatt, the longtime big of the KCRW vigor amusement “Bookworm” — known for interviews of authors truthful successful extent that they sometimes near his subjects astounded astatine his breadth of cognition of their enactment — has died. He was 73.

Silverblatt died Saturday astatine location aft a protracted illness, a adjacent person confirmed.

Although Silverblatt’s 30-minute show, which ran from 1989 to 2022 and was nationally syndicated, included interviews with celebrated authors including Gore Vidal, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Foster Wallace, Susan Orlean, Joan Didion and Zadie Smith, the existent prima of the amusement was the big himself, the nasal-voiced vigor property who much than erstwhile successful beingness was told helium did not person a dependable for his medium.

His amusement represents 1 of the astir important archives of conversations with large literate powerhouses from the precocious 20th and aboriginal 21st centuries.

But Silverblatt knew that helium was arsenic overmuch a quality arsenic the radical helium interviewed.

“I’m arsenic fantastical a carnal arsenic thing successful Oz oregon successful Wonderland,” helium said during a speech successful beforehand of the Cornell University English section successful 2010. “I similar it if radical tin say, ‘I ne'er met anyone similar him,’ and by that they should mean that it wasn’t an unpleasant experience.”

Born successful 1952, the Brooklyn autochthonal learned to emotion speechmaking arsenic a kid erstwhile helium was introduced to “Alice’s Adventures successful Wonderland.” Neighbors would spot him walking the streets of Brooklyn with his caput successful a publication and would sometimes telephone his parents retired of fearfulness helium mightiness get hurt.

But until helium near location for the University astatine Buffalo, State University of New York, astatine the property of 16, Silverblatt has said, helium had ne'er met an author.

His college, however, was filled with specified celebrated authors arsenic Michel Foucault, John Barth, Donald Barthelme and J.M. Coetzee, who were each moving arsenic professors.

Silverblatt was shy and excessively embarrassed to talk during people due to the fact that of his inability to intelligibly pronounce the missive “L,” which appears 3 times successful his ain name. Yet helium considered the authors to beryllium his friends, adjacent if they did not cognize it yet, helium said during the Cornell talk.

He would attack them aft people to talk astir their work.

Despite his involvement successful literature, Silverblatt’s parents wanted him to go a message carrier, helium said. The summertime aft his freshman year, Silverblatt worked a New York City message route, delivering letters to the mayor’s mansion connected an Upper East Side way that took him past galore aged bookstores and used-books shops. During that job, helium said successful the Cornell talk, helium purchased the implicit works of Charles Dickens.

Silverblatt moved to Los Angeles aft assemblage successful the mid-1970s and worked successful Hollywood successful nationalist relations and publication development.

Like galore young writers successful Los Angeles, helium wrote a publication that ne'er got made.

It was successful Los Angeles that Silverblatt met Ruth Seymour, the longtime caput of KCRW.

Seymour had conscionable returned to the United States from Russia and was astatine a meal enactment wherever everyone was discussing Hollywood. There, she and Silverblatt became immersed successful a one-on-one treatment of Russian poetry.

“He’s a large raconteur and truthful the remainder of the satellite conscionable vanished,” Seymour told Times columnist Lynell George successful 1997. “Afterward I conscionable turned and asked him: ‘Have you ever thought astir doing radio?’”

For the adjacent 33 years, that’s precisely what helium thought about.

“Michael was a genius. He could beryllium mesmerizing and always, always, ever brilliant,” said Alan Howard, who edited “Bookworm” for 31 years.

“It’s an bonzer archive that exists, and I don’t deliberation anyone other has ever created specified an archive of intelligent, absorbing radical being asked astir their work,” Howard said. “Michael was precise arrogant of the show. He devoted his beingness to the show.”

Silverblatt erstwhile dreamed of being connected the different broadside of the microphone, arsenic a writer successful his ain right, Howard said. But helium faced bouts of writer’s artifact done his 20s and gave up writing.

“Eventually, helium came to find bid with the world of that,” Howard said.

Instead of writing, helium became an accumulator of a immense magnitude of different writers’ enactment — successful his room arsenic good arsenic the repository successful his head. He had an unthinkable representation for the books helium read.

Silverblatt converted the flat adjacent to his Fairfax flat into a room wherever helium kept thousands of books, Howard said.

“It was heaven,” helium said. “It was a fabulous library.”

“He was specified a singular person,” said Jennifer Ferro, present the president of KCRW. “He had a dependable you would ne'er expect would beryllium connected radio.”

Alan Felsenthal, a writer who considered Silverblatt a mentor, called Silverblatt’s dependable “sensitive and tender.”

Felsenthal said the amusement was astir creating a abstraction of “infinite compassion,” wherever writers could stock things they mightiness not stock successful mundane conversation.

“Michael was 1 of a kind, genuinely singular. And his dependable is too,” Felsenthal said.

One of the astir important tenets of Silverblatt’s attack was that helium not lone work the publication helium was discussing connected his amusement that day, but besides work the full oeuvre of the authors helium interviewed.

“A important writer would travel successful and beryllium bowled implicit by Michael’s extent of imaginativeness of the enactment astatine hand,” Howard said.

David Foster Wallace, successful 1 interview, said helium wanted Silverblatt to follow him.

Silverblatt said helium strove to work an author’s full assemblage of work, but helium ne'er claimed to person work it each if helium hadn’t.

“In wide I effort to work the author’s implicit work. ... That’s not ever true, and I ne'er accidental it if it isn’t true. But much often than not, I have, astatine least, work the bulk of the work. And sometimes it’s a superhuman challenge,” helium said successful the 1997 Times column.

The voracious scholar said that the champion books, those that brought him happiness, were not the ones that easiness our mode successful this unusual and hard world.

“The books I emotion the astir made it harder for maine to live,” helium said.

Silverblatt is survived by his sister, Joan Bykofsky.