The inimitable Paige Lewis, “poet who wrote a novel,” joins us to discuss their critically lauded and popular-with-this-podcast’s-hosts epic prose poem Canon, as well as their writing processes and Simpsons fanaticism. You don’t want to miss this one, unless you dislike good things.

Then, Mason reviews the late author James Sallis’s final novel Backwater, and our hosts ponder whether it subverts subversive expectations or is just a meandering story of small-town cop life that doesn’t do much of anything, but does it pretty well.

Canon by Paige Lewis is out now.

Backwater by James Sallis is out now.

Works cited this episode:

The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening, Sim Simon, and James L. Brooks

The Odyssey, dir. Christopher Nolan

Book of Judges, the Bible

Annie Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks

The Descent of Alette, Alice Notley

Inferno, Dante Aligheri

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis

Rejected, dir. Don Hertzfeld

It’s Such a Beautiful Day, dir. Don Hertzfeld

Peep Show, created by Andrew O’Connor, Jesse Armstrong, and Sam Bain

The Iliad, Homer

Babylon, South Dakota, Tom Lin

Drive, James Sallis

The Killer is Dying, James Sallis

The Departed, dir. Martin Scorsese

Taxi Driver, dir. Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas, dir. Martin Scorsese

Boogie Nights, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

There Will Be Blood, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

One Battle After Another, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon