Joseph O’Neill is one of America’s very best novelists under 50 years of age. His super–critically acclaimed third novel, “Netherland,” has been compared to “The Great Gatsby,” mainly because its main character, like Gatsby, meets a watery gangsterish death. What has been less discussed is perhaps the hardest thing to talk about when we talk about fiction, i.e., O’Neill’s masterly writing style, his absolutely awesome technique.

I haven’t the space or the inclination to describe what I mean in detail. Suffice it to say here that Angela Elam’s half-hour interview has enough snippets from “Netherland” for listeners to appreciate the magnificence of O’Neill’s sentences. Without in the least overwriting and filling his pages with purple prose, O’Neill puts together the building blocks of a novel whose sentences have the symphonic aura of Richard Ford’s, the panache of Zadie Smith’s and the subtlety of William Trevor’s.

“Netherland” is about the post–World Trade Center underworld of Third World people who play cricket in New York City. O’Neill is a terrifically artful reader of his own work. Plus, he evinces plenty of street smarts and good old-fashioned charm in his give and take with Elam. I for one had no idea he speaks with a British accent. But forget Churchill and Colonel Blimp: O’Neill is thoroughly a man of our time.

This “New Letters on the Air” interview is thoroughly enlightening, entertaining—just what you’ll want to hear at the outset of our brave new decade!