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In Victor LaValle's new novel, The Devil in Silver, a man is mistakenly committed to a mental hospital where a buffalo-headed monster stalks patients at night.

The plausibility of a monster roaming the hospital's halls made sense, says LaValle, who has a personal connection to the mentally ill.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

We've been hearing, all morning, reports of Hurricane Isaac coming ashore along the gulf coast, and we're going, now, to Craig Fugate. He is the FEMA Administrator, the Federal Emergency Management Agency - and he is spending the morning on the gulf coast. Mr. Fugate, where are you now?

In her convention speech, Ann Romney talked about the role of women in America. Host Michel Martin caught up with Rep. Marsha Blackburn before the speech. Blackburn says the concerns of women voters were key in drafting the Republican platform. She co-chairs the GOP platform committee, and heads the Women's Policy Committee in the House.

Seven years ago, Alesha Seroczynski became a central character in an incredible story about second chances for juvenile offenders in South Bend. With the University of Notre Dame, she developed Reading for Life, a program that combines reading literature, studying seven classic virtues — Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Fidelity, Hope, Charity — and being mentored to help students make better life choices.

Alesha and more than 30 volunteer mentors have graduated 150 juveniles from the program — 97 percent have not re-offended.

Bob Boilen and I were out in Portland and Seattle last week on our summer listening party tour, so we didn't post a new poll of albums everyone can love. Fear not: To make up for the week off, this week we've got 40 albums for you. In the coming weeks we'll let you know which records have been doing the best and have some sort of runoff between the highest vote-getters to come up with a top ten we all can agree on (well, most of us, anyway).

Here's this week's double-size poll. Just tell us whether you love, don't love or haven't really heard each album.

The Associated Press and The Huffington Post have gotten their hands on early copies of No Easy Day. As Mark wrote earlier this month, the book is a firsthand account of the secret military raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Flu is most deadly for children with neurologic problems and disorders, an analysis of swine flu fatalities finds.

The results come from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers who looked at childhood fatalities during the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009, when there were five times the usual number of deaths.

In all, 43 percent of the deaths occurred in children who had neurologic diseases, such as cerebral palsy and epilepsy, or developmental disorders.

It's become a perennial problem for Republicans, but not one that the party yet knows how to solve.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now, Greg mentioned Plaquemines Parish. Look at a map of Louisiana and you'll see that parish, a finger of land sticking far out into the Gulf of Mexico. Jennifer Hale of WVUE Television is in the parish, spent the night there. And Ms. Hale, where are you now?