John Brandon is a novelist who was raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Citrus County is set in his home state and is his second novel, focusing on a teacher and two middle-schoolers who have their loneliness and status as outsiders in common. The book is part crime novel and part exploration of the adolescent pysche.

JESSE THORN: It’s The Sound of Young America, I’m Jesse thorn. My guest on the program is the novelist John Brandon. He’s a professor at Ol’ Miss University. His new book is called Citrus County. It’s set in Citrus County, Florida, which is simultaneously the northern and southern part of Florida; physically northern and culturally southern. Places where there are no beaches and people have not bothered to turn it into Orlando.

It’s the story of two middle schoolers and a middle school teacher, and a horrible crime, and basically the feeling of being lost in one’s life. Either as a very well justified adolescent or as a maybe slightly less justified almost 30 year old. John Brandon, welcome to the sound of young America.

JOHN BRANDON: Thanks a lot.

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William Gibson is a science fiction writer whose works increasingly take place in a realistic present. His latest book, Zero History, is about fashion, authenticity and identity. It's a freestanding third work in an informal trilogy, which also includes Pattern Recognition and Spook Country.

Walter Mosley is the author of more than 30 books in a broad variety of genres, but he's best known for his detective fiction. His Easy Rawlins series began with 1989's best-selling Devil in a Blue Dress. His latest series features a new hero, the pugnacious, middle-aged Leonid McGill. He just released the second novel featuring McGill, Known to Evil.

Before he was a novelist, Mosley was a computer programmer. Originally born in Los Angeles, Mosley spent time in the Bay Area before moving to New York City, where the McGill novels are set.