Have You Read Stephen Bodio?

I once sat in the writer Chilton Williamson's living room in Kemmerer, Wyoming, twenty years ago, drinking coffee and chatting about books and writers. Chilton kept parrots -- I recall three or four in a tall corner birdcage -- and periodically they would begin their subtle ornithological gossip among themselves, which quickly escalated to loud squawking. Hardly interrupting his erudite monologue, Chilton calmly rose from his chair, walked over to the cage, put his closely-cropped blond-bearded face next to it and shouted: "Shut up!" The parrots were immediately silenced: all ruffled, pastel plumage, and cowering on their perches. Chilton performed this disciplinary chore a couple of more times during a long conversation where such names as Edmund Wilson, Cormac McCarthy, and his old boss Bill Buckley were dropped, and after another of these terrifying cage visits he again sat down, and asked: " Have you read Stephen Bodio?"