Writers and Company.

• Author: Kellman, Steven G.

"In general it seems to me that conversation is air," complains Cynthia Ozick, explaining her aversion to interviews. "One can't control it; foolish germs escape one's lips and contaminate the air and one can not draw them back."

However, the air is remarkably invigorating in Writers & Company, a collection of 21 interviews conducted by Eleanor Wachtel on a weekly radio program broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and also heard in 38 U.S. states. Culled from about 100 literary conversations that Wachtel has had on air, they offer privileged insights into the authors' works, as well as vivid acquaintance with the human beings who created them.

Most of those Wachtel interviews are in their 40s or 50s and, with the exception of Israeli novelist Amos Oz, write their books in English. They primarily deal in prose, though Wachtel focuses her questions to Margaret Atwood on the Canadian celebrity's poetry and also talks with Diane Wood Middlebrook, biographer of poet Anne Sexton. The wonder is how singular each conversation is--how, even reduced to print, each voice is distinct.

"All of us are trying not to be our parents," says Russell Banks, who ran away from his New England home at age 18. That bard of blue-collar, white America might not speak for the entire species, but many of those interviewed portray emancipation from family...