Bookends with Mattea Roach

Murder Bimbo is a new book about a sex worker-turned assassin … and it’s the debut novel by Rebecca Novack, a former priest-in-training. The story follows a sex worker nicknamed Murder Bimbo who is hired by the government to kill a right-wing politician. She does the deed, makes her escape, and tells her story in emails to a social justice podcaster. But things aren’t quite what they seem. So is she a scapegoat … or is she a liar? This week, Rebecca dives into the wild premise of the book, how she almost became a priest and the challenges of writing a political novel in fraught times.

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Taylor Jenkins Reid is among the stars — on and off the page

If you’re worried about being lonely in the afterlife, don’t worry. Just hire a corpse bride to keep you company in the coffin! In Lindsay Wong’s new novel, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies, a university dropout is desperate to pay off her family’s debt … so she signs her life away to the ancient Chinese tradition of corpse marriage. But as she prepares to be auctioned off to the highest bidder and locked away in a coffin forever, she realizes that running from her family’s ghosts won’t be that easy. This week, Lindsay joins Mattea to talk about the history behind death marriages, how her own life inspired the novel and why she loves to write about the grotesque.

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How far would you go for your family?
Three writers on the monsters that made them

Carla Ciccone was 39 years old when she was diagnosed with ADHD. That diagnosis changed everything for her ... and she shares her experience in her new memoir, Nowhere Girl: Life as a Member of ADHD’s Lost Generation. Over the past few years, the rates of adult women receiving ADHD diagnoses have risen dramatically. So why were these women overlooked for so long? And where do they go from here? This week, Carla tells Mattea about struggling with undiagnosed ADHD, understanding her childhood through a new lens and finding humour in the frustration of it all.

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Weightlifting made Casey Johnston stronger — in muscle and mind
Kate Gies: Reclaiming her body after years of medical trauma

If you’re feeling jaded by money, politics and modern dating … you’re not the only one. Conor Kerr’s new novella, Beaver Hills Forever, follows the everyday lives of four Métis people in Edmonton. The odds are stacked against them and life is exhausting, but each person finds meaning in the small moments and the beauty of life in the Canadian Prairies. Beaver Hills Forever is a poetic love letter to the city of Edmonton and the power of community … and yes, the perils of dating apps make an appearance too. This week, Conor joins Mattea to talk about the unique structure of the book, how he battles his own cynicism and what it really means to strive for a better life.

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For Indigenous players, ice hockey is a ceremony of its own
Ocean Vuong finds beauty in a fast food shift

What would you do if there was a jellyfish in your eye? And what if it started multiplying, blocking your vision completely? That’s the premise of The Jellyfish, the latest graphic novel by the Montreal artist Boum. The Jellyfish is an allegory for learning to live with a degenerative condition and is based on Boum’s own experience with vision loss. It follows a young person named Odette as they navigate life, work and a budding romance … all while jellyfish start to cloud their vision. Boum tells Mattea about using sea creatures to represent vision loss and how losing an eye has changed the way they make art.

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Alison Bechdel on making money and seeing Fun Home in a new light
Chris Ware: Inside the sketchbooks of a comics master