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Lindsay Wong, "Villian Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies" (Penguin Random House Canada, 2026)
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- [00:01]
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- [01:16]
Lindsay Wong
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:21]
Holly Gattery
Hello everyone and welcome to nbn. I am your host, Holly Gattery and I am thrilled, thrilled to be joined today by author Lindsay Wong to talk about her phenomenal new novel, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies, which was recently released by Penguin Random House Canada, a young woman signs her life away in the ancient Chinese tradition of corpse marriage. In this wickedly hilarious novel about class, ambition and the burden of being an impoverished model minority. Welcome to the show, Lindsay.
- [02:01]
Lindsay Wong
Thank you so much, Holly, for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
- [02:04]
Holly Gattery
I am so excited to be talking to you about this book. You know that I love it. I've been talking to it about it to anyone who is in spitting distance of me. And I'm a firm believer in the power of word of mouth to get books into people's hands. So I think we can see things on social media a billion times. But one enthusiastic and in your face review by an overly bookish person like myself, I feel does a lot more. So I'm so excited to have you for our listeners. Lindsay Wong is the author of the critically acclaimed, award winning and best selling Memoir, the Woo Woo, which is a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Lindsay holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in Literary Nonfiction from Columbia University. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Winnipeg. So, Lindsay, let's start with a basic question, but important one, especially for our listeners who may not have read this book. And that is, where did this book come from for you? What was the first spark where you thought, I need to write a novel about corpse marriage? Which is a topic that was completely new to me. And I honestly didn't believe it was a real thing at first, but of course it was. And arguably, maybe in some parts still is. I don't know. I'll leave you to speak to that.
- [03:33]
Lindsay Wong
So growing up, I was always told that if you did not get married, you could not be buried with the family. Right. There's something about, you know, Chinese culture that we do everything together. We're supposed to eat together, we're supposed to shop together, and then we're supposed to die together, right? And so that was always instilled in me. And then when I decided to go to Hong Kong alone in 2023, I was warned by these aunties saying, like, well, you know, be really careful, because in some parts of Asia, people are kidnapping and killing women and putting them in coffins. So corpse marriage, it goes back to Tang dynasty in the 5th century, where they would put two corpses together, a man and a woman, or they might just find a female that was attractive or came from a good family. They might kill this person, usually someone who wouldn't be missed, and they put you in a coffin with someone so you will be satisfied or happy in the afterlife. Right? And so for me, it was always like, well, you know, what happens if that would happen to me? And I know I have really bad luck, so I know the killing would go horribly wrong. And I would wake up next to a corpse. I think somebody would start talking to me. And then I was like, well, you know, what happens if this person is really boring? And that sort of became the seed of the novel. And so.
- [04:59]
Interviewer/Host
And it's like such a grisly practice
- [05:01]
Lindsay Wong
just to think about it, right? To be like, you know, what if you arrange death marriage?
- [05:08]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. I really enjoy books that go places that I am too squeamish or scared to go on my own. So that's what this book absolutely did to me was this is something that I would. I would be Even too afraid to research on my own because I wouldn't want ideas put in my head that would haunt me for the rest of my life. But even understanding that this is a very much a real. A real practice, something that actually happened within the soft cotton batting world of fiction, I could engage with it without feeling so scared of it. And more than that, I was highly entertained. And I think the entertainment for me, the seed of that is Lucinda, who is the protagonist of this novel. And she is described in the book, on the book cover as poor, vicious Lucinda Lowe is a nobody with a powerful witch for a grandmother and an undead corpse. Kid sister as her only friend. She's also a broke MFA dropout in Vancouver, six roommate, zero, job prospect. She's buried so deep in debt, she might as well be six feet under. And her family's in danger of being buried along with her. So Lucinda, to me is such a lovely character, which anyone who's read the book, hear me out. I believe this because she is full of complexity. I found her an extremely likable character. I found that and likable in the way that, like, I like to like her in the book.
- [06:40]
Lindsay Wong
I don't know if I'd want to
- [06:41]
Holly Gattery
hang out with her in real life, but in the book I like to like her. And I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about where Lucinda came from, because she is. You don't flatten her as a character. She can think horrible things, do kind of shady things. She's not always the nicest person, but she contains multitudes and I love that she is not flattened. And I think that's one of the things I love about her the most. So I'd love to hear more about creating her.
- [07:10]
Lindsay Wong
Thank you. That's such a great question and a really good compliment. Usually when woman writers, especially bipoc writers, we write characters that don't always do the nicest things or have kind thoughts. We get a lot of pushback from readers, especially Internet readers, because we want. We say that we don't want our female characters to be, you know, likable, to be unlikable. And then when we write something, when someone is sort of mean or antagonistic, it just. The reaction from readers is usually not. It's not very nice. Um, and so for me, it was really important for Lucinda to kind of push back against the model minority of an Asian woman being really passive and subservient and quiet, because if you spend time in Lucinda's interiority, she has these really unkind thoughts sometimes and that's very normal and human, right? She's sort of grappling with intergenerational trauma. She has an undead sister, which is like a horrible thing to have, right? Who wants a zombie sister? Which is, you know, ridiculous, but also, I can imagine it happening. And then she has a grandmother who is a witch, and her grandmother is someone also very fierce, and she does some unkind things where she is cursing people. And so she comes from this legacy, a really strong, ferocious woman. And I wanted to write against these stereotypes of Asian women being very passive. And so for me, it came very important to think about. You know, you have this person, right, who is in society. She has, you know, done. She did mfa. She has no job prospects. She's living in with roommates. And she's sort of at the bottom of the barrel. And I wanted to take a. Also look at, you know, late stage capitalism. So what do you do when you have no choice, right? There's, like, choicelessness for Lucinda. And for me, it was sort of thinking, what can I do by pairing the trauma with this very sarcastic voice? But she's also very funny because she sees things that other people don't see, right? And I. I always like to pair absurdity and trauma when I'm. I'm writing because I think there's something about it that creates that unique tension, right. If it was all terrible and. And traumatic, I think my reader would run away. But if there's Lucinda who's noticing all these sort of things, she's making these sly comments, she's kind of snarky about it, then you get just really unexpected voice.
- [09:47]
Interviewer/Host
I think on the page, I could
- [09:49]
Holly Gattery
completely understand why Lucinda was the way she was, though. I want to talk about gore in this book and the way that Lucinda is constantly surrounded by decomposition and some pretty gruesome, Some gruesome scenes, some gruesome stuff. I mean, her grandmother was. Any interaction she had with her grandmother and her grandmother's face kind of slipping. I mean, I was like, ugh. But the way that you do it is positively radiant and poetic. And I didn't feel like I was overwhelmed by the gore or even some of the really horror horrific elements. Like, there's horror and there's also horrific elements, but I didn't feel like I was being waterboarded with it. And I've read horror novels before where I felt like, wow, this is. This is too much. I felt like you had a deliciously gothic touch. It almost classically gothic with a really modern edge to it. And I'D love to hear about how you bring gore to the page without making it overwhelming.
- [10:58]
Lindsay Wong
That's such a nice compliment. And I think. And that really goes back to wanting to be really mindful because so much of horror, I think, in the past was done to shock. And. And in this case, when. When writing bipoc horror, I wanted to really make this sort of. This idea of this metaphor, right.
- [11:19]
Holly Gattery
Of.
- [11:19]
Lindsay Wong
Of identity. So when, you know, Lucinda's grandmother, her father, faces falling off, there's like beauty, but there's also something really ugly about it as well. And so for me, it sort of became this way of just looking at, you know, these women have been. Have Had. Had no choice. They had to make these horrible bargains with these really cruel ancient Chinese gods, but at the same time, they're told that their value is in their beauty.
- [11:47]
Interviewer/Host
Right.
- [11:48]
Lindsay Wong
And. And so. So I wanted to sort of play on that trope that. Yes, you know, if you villain hit, which is what Lucinda's grandmother does, she's a witch who does all these. This cursing with a shoe that your insides rot. Right.
- [12:02]
Holly Gattery
And so that.
- [12:03]
Lindsay Wong
That play on beauty was really important to me. And just, you know, being able to see that there is, you know, beauty in decay, there is beauty in horror. And it's sort of like creating that atmosphere, I think, you know, I think it is thinking about the intention for the reader, thinking about that creepiness. Right. There's something about in your face. Horror versus writing. Something that is more, I guess, moody and evocative. But I'm so glad it resonated. I had so much fun doing research on maggots. I was, you know, googling like, what do maggots look like? And yes, it was disgusting. But there's. I know there's something kind of interesting, I guess, about the texture and. And the beauty and that. That visceral feeling of imagining what is it like to have, like, maggots crawl on you. Right? So that's. That's something that I'm always interested in as a writer.
- [13:01]
Holly Gattery
I loved it. And I mean, let's. If we talk about Lucinda's grandmother, it's really interesting for me that a lot of the scenes in the book that I found horrible around her were scenes and realities that were implied. So the fact that she has Bo Chay, her grandmother has a lot of boyfriends, but she is essentially not really alive in the way that we think she is. Again, her face is slightly sliding off. There's, you know, I'm thinking like, she has all these boyfriends. Like, how do they not know? And how do they interact with her if she's not all physically together on a sexual level? But this is something that's happening a little bit off stage. Like, we're never really talked about it. And so there's also, there's the literal horror and then there's the implied horror, which I really enjoyed because my mind went to all these places. I'm like, well, guys really just do it with anything, you know, in this book.
- [14:11]
Lindsay Wong
Yes. Or, or there's like that magic to it. Or like sometimes, you know, it's so funny because I always joke that people don't really look closely and they miss all sorts of things, especially, you know, if you're a marginalized person.
- [14:24]
Interviewer/Host
Right.
- [14:25]
Lindsay Wong
They're just not going to see it. Or they only see what they want to see.
- [14:28]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, exactly. And I really enjoyed that. And I love what you said about how these women have been oppressed and they have to do what they have to do to survive and then they do what they have to survive, and then they're punished for it and criticized for it and hated for it. And it's such, a, to me, such a radically liberating book that you just let these characters be who they are. And, and that doesn't mean that they're always going to be there to placate the reader and to make the reader comfortable. I enjoyed how ticklishly squeamish this book made me. And not just because of the gore, but because these women were doing things that women, but especially model minorities, are not supposed to be doing. And I was a hundred percent here for it. I, I loved the way that you brought that to the page. And I mean, I read this book and it's, it's not like it's a 200 page book that's just relatively short. I mean, I, I read it in one night because I could not put it down. I mean, it was probably a relatively disturbing dream night for me, but it was a hundred percent, 100% worth it. And I would love for you to let our readers know about the villain hitting, because I feel like, you know, I'm talking to you about our readers, our listeners. I'm talking to you about the book and I've obviously read it, so I know what villain heading is and you touched on it. You know, it's something, it's a curse, it's something that a witch does. But I think that maybe our listeners would love to know a little bit more about it because it is in the title and it is A large part of the book.
- [16:12]
Interviewer/Host
Yeah.
- [16:13]
Lindsay Wong
And first of all, I have to thank you so much for reading this book and taking the time to blurb it. It's just we were talking before the interview about, you know, how much you do for the candidate community and. And with this podcast. So thank you for that. And with villain hitting, just like corpse marriage is another ancient Chinese tradition and what. One reason why I wanted to also write about it in this book is that it's something that only women do. It happens in Hong Kong. You can go to Causeway Bay and there are a bunch of elderly women sitting under a bridge. I think they live there, or they're very impoverished and you pay them $9 Canadian and you say, can you curse? So and so for me. So you can have a long list of people from like bosses to colleagues and exes, and then they will do it. They will take a shoe, which is villain hitting, and they'll take a paper effigy or keep a photo, and they'll start hitting this paper and they'll start chanting and they'll be like, you know, beat this person's head. Do this and this. Right? You can come up with all sorts of creative curses. I mean, I don't think it works, but it's really just, I guess, a really symbolic act of vengeance, like when you really can't do anything in your life against people, right? So you have to go to these women who also don't have much of a choice, right? They don't have any power in society, and that's why they usually turn to villain hitting, right? And so it's sort of this kind of cycle of, you know, I've been hurt by this society, by oppression. What can I do? I have to turn to a witch and ask them to help me, right? And so I thought it really paired perfectly with corpse marriage because it's again, women have no choice, right? It's their families. It's the males in these families who are saying, listen, you know, you can't die alone. You need to reproduce. And you sort of have to follow in this sort of set tradition.
- [18:15]
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Interviewer/Host
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- [19:06]
Holly Gattery
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- [19:14]
Lindsay Wong
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- [19:15]
Holly Gattery
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- [19:30]
Lindsay Wong
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- [19:34]
Holly Gattery
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- [20:06]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, thank you so much for that. I was at Lindsay's Toronto launch of this book at the wonderful Another Story bookshop in Toronto and I really enjoyed seeing Villain hitting in action with Saul, who is the one, was a bookseller and Another Story and we had a shoe, we had a paper effigy. It felt very immersive and I was so glad I got to experience that because that, that to me had the sinister and playful edge that this book has. That act of villain hitting with you and Saul is. The book is so playful and so sinister and so dark. It's. It's this gorgeous combination and confluence of seemingly opposing forces. But for anyone who's actually living our lives attuned with being alive, I mean, there is no single force. We're all made up of many forces, many things, many moments, and many of them seem to be in contradiction. But of course that's just being alive. So I really enjoyed that. I have some other questions, but first I would love for you to read to us from your book so our listeners can get a taste of the story.
- [21:18]
Interviewer/Host
Okay, I can do that. So I'm going to start with the dedication.
- [21:22]
Lindsay Wong
I always have a lot of fun with dedications, so if you go back to all my other work, I think those are that's like my my favorite part to write.
- [21:32]
Interviewer/Host
For every idiot you know, who you are, who inconvenienced, frustrated, or impeded me in some way, may someone, not me, curse you with a shoe. This book is also dedicated to everyone who's felt the rough sting of being a nobody, the pleasantness of reality after being jostled from a pretty dream that simply wasn't meant for you. Part 1 Brain Emotion so and so, beloved son, I hereby inform you. You died at a young age and thus did not realize the great principle of marriage. You sleep alone in the dark world and lack the intimacy of man and woman. Just as living people long for companionship, the dead fear loneliness as well. Unexpectedly, so and so's family had a daughter who just passed away. Like an autumn leaf. We set up a trophy for you so your souls might meet. We selected this auspicious day for the rite of your union. We also set out an offering next to your shrine tablet, furnished with all kinds of food. Please send your spirit down to the banquet and eat the meal. Guide to Afterlife Marriage Proposal Letter Lucinda Gusao Province, Southwestern China present day exactly 26 hours after we signed the contract,
- [22:46]
Lindsay Wong
we practice dyeing together in caskets the
- [22:49]
Interviewer/Host
color of wholesome baby teeth. Never mind, they're affordable luxury ones with barely acceptable breathing holes inside them. There's a silk pillow that makes our heads appear bulbous. A lovely purple sedative dissolved under the tongue is recommended for our first time. I suppose it is not without kindness that they take our elbows and wrists and lead us with exaggerated solemnities arranged for us in alphabetical order. Here lie our ordinary sized 84 times 28 times times 23 coffins row by row, waiting for us former nobodies to stretch supine in them, eyes open or closed. Off we glide, dead eyed mouth breathers and poorly postured deadbeats of our generation escorted to our signed coffins in a damp concrete theater. I mean, it is not without kindness
- [23:37]
Lindsay Wong
that they treat us like prized goats
- [23:38]
Interviewer/Host
in petting zoos to be coaxed, fed and groomed into immaculate corpsebestus. Let us help you, the matchmakers coup adding our shoulders and forearms stapled with small goose pimples, whether from cold or deathly anticipation. Softly you usher each to the coffin with our headshot placed on the lid and give us a moment to revel our mourn our life choices before opening the casket ta Da. Before helping us step in, look. Our guides hand us a stingy bouquet of half wilted flowers, most likely plucked by a peasant with calloused fingers from some mountainside in China. Welcome. Welcome to your new abode, they murmur. Congratulations on accepting the afterlife. Dead dears. Since we arrived, broken, squashed by economies about status or money, hope fed and gutted by stories of everyone else's successes, to be told that we have a second chance feels sweetly glittering, if bitterly overwhelming. I suppose it's actually pragmatic, not kind. Then our guides demonstrated the proper method of solo coffin dwelling before a permanent partnering. We introduce themselves as uncles and aunties of love. Death ask us if we're comfortable and offer us a light but nutritious snack before coffin practice begins. They tell us that we should be serious, sad, non smiling, shoulders back because we are sleeping beauties, proper corpse spouses. Maybe it's classus elitisto. For them to assume we don't know the solemn rituals of dying is condescending of them to think we have not experienced at least a semblance of loss, a little bon bon of tragedy, that we don't understand what it is we have signed up for. Don't be afraid, they murmur to us, staring lovingly at our person sized boxes, arranging our bodies like well meaning massage therapists. Head more to middle arm position 35 degrees. Prevent cramping. Relax face. Unsmile, please. They want to take a photo to commemorate this moment. So out of obligation, we say okay, yeah, and shut our eyes. But then they, not without kindness, slam the lids and lock us in. For your safekeeping. The matchmakers murmur in tender voices. We cry out with shock. Some of us yelp from instinct. It is a solemn, unfunny thing to lie unburied in the semi darkness, a locked box for employment purposes. But what did we expect in our previous world? Goodwill and help accompany sinister betrayals. Shush, the matchmakers say. I live astonished when we bang on the insides of our boxes and shout obscenities that would make us regretful even under normal circumstances. They whisper, shout, dead wives and dead husbands do not make complaining noises. Thank you, thank you.
- [26:20]
Holly Gattery
I just love that phrasing the bonbons of tragedy. I mean, I think it. I think it just speaks to that very short little snippet of again, the playful sinisterness of the book. Bonbon and tragedy paired together in a sentence. It's so perfect. I love it.
- [26:42]
Lindsay Wong
There's something about candy, right, that is kind of sinister, right? You don't know what's in it.
- [26:46]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, exactly. Trust me. Yes, there is. I 100% agree. I love it. It's so perfect. And that's another thing. I also think of Candy as very colorful. And again, something about your work that always stands out to me because obviously this is not the first book of yours. Not obviously. It's obvious. You know, listeners may not know it's not the first book I've read of Lindsay's. I've read all of Lindsay's work. But Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality, which is a collection of short fiction, has a similar quality of being very vibrant and also very morbid and gothic. Not very morbid in gothic. I suppose it is. There's that scene in one of the stories where there's a head in the trunk that was quite, you know, that I can still, like. I can still smell that scene. Yes, I suppose it is morbid, but also very colorful and playful. Like, it's. It's all of these things at once, and I. I adore it. So. Speaking of playful, I do. I do have to touch on the footnotes in. In this book because I found them incredibly fun to read and also joyous. Joyfully petty as well. And that's my favorite kind of pettiness and arguably maybe my favorite kind of joy as well. Oh, this makes me seem like a horrible person. I'm not going to defend myself. Lindsay, please do talk to us about the footnotes and why you included them and their. Their. Their function in this book.
- [28:18]
Lindsay Wong
Well, first of all, I'm not capable of being serious. I think, yes, there's serious things have happened to myself and to my characters. So I always just find there's just so much absurdity and tragedy, and there's so much absurdity in horror. And so when I was writing the footnotes, I really just thought of it as an opportunity to, I guess, unleash that pettiness. I think I do, unfortunately, have a mean streak like Lucinda. And for me, I thought, honestly, no one would read the footnotes. So I'm surprised you did, Holly. And I kind of put in these observations about colleagues, people that I know, because I think they're not going to read the book or read the footnotes. At least I hope not. And then I also put down some of my experiences that I myself had faced, and. And also, I think, by default, Lucinda, in being in an MFA program where other writers, especially white writers, didn't understand the work.
- [29:23]
Interviewer/Host
Right.
- [29:23]
Lindsay Wong
And so I really saw it, thought of it as an opening for me to sort of air these grievances Right. Was kind of being a little cheeky. But also, as you know, when bipoc writers, we always say we're like writers from the margins or writing in the margins. So it was sort of like a really play on that. Right. And so there are kind of like these little secret messages or love letters to the community if you want to read the footnotes. And that was just my way of, again, being very playful. And some of it is a joke, of course, but underneath the joke, there's something there, if you choose to see it.
- [30:00]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I was all for the footnotes. If somebody told me that Lindsay Wong has written footnotes on used toilet paper that you can only find in a dumpster right now, I'd go find it. Like, I'd be like, I need to know this because you're always so perfectly cheeky about everything, but also very clever and smart. And also the footnotes are also like, when readers need them. They're also very informative as well. You know, we get some history in there, too. So I felt like I was in a dryer, like, tumbling around with socks of history, socks of pettiness, socks of cheek and playfulness. Morbid socks. This is a really weird metaphor, and I apologize. I love it.
- [30:46]
Lindsay Wong
No, it's so good.
- [30:47]
Holly Gattery
I'm so domesticated. Help me. Yeah, I love it. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how Lucinda gets to a point where corpse marriage seems like the only solution. Because maybe for a lot of people, they'd be like, I would not do that. I don't care how bad things are. Why would I sell myself into corpse marriage? But Lucinda doesn't really have options. Lucinda is, you know, a victim of latehood capitalism, among many other things. So, again, this is something I'd love for you to position for our listeners. What brings Lucinda to this point?
- [31:30]
Lindsay Wong
So Lucinda again. No, she has no job prospects. Right. She has no money, you know, and she's just someone who has a really complicated relationship with both her grandmother and her undead sister. But she also does love them very much in her own way. And so when they're in trouble, they've been taken by a Chinese triad. She feels that the only way to get money is to do something really extreme. And I know it sounds horrible, someone to be like, I'm going to, you know, you know, sell myself, my body, my life, so I can save someone else. But for her, it becomes the fastest way of getting cash. And I wanted to show that even in today's society, there are no options for a lot of People who don't come from wealth or don't have a background necessarily to help them. And so for Linda, it becomes like the only way. And it's absurdist, it's scary, it's awful, but that just shows how hard it is and, and really her choicelessness. I drew a lot on my time as a. A really unemployed, broke writer. After my mfa. I was also living in Vancouver with six roommates. And I remember renting this room in East Fashion. And I was at this time I was also on, on Canada Reads. And so many people said to me, and they were shocked. They said, so do you mean you're not well off? You know, are you not successful? You're on Canada Reads, you have a best selling memoir?
- [33:06]
Interviewer/Host
And I was like, well, no, I
- [33:07]
Lindsay Wong
live in, you know, East Van with six roommates and I tutor to make a living. I do all these sorts of weird gigs. And so I really wanted to kind of show that ridiculousness of it all. And there's this moment in the book where Lucinda talks about this theater director, her roommate, who's very successful on paper, but she's also living in this house. And that was also something that happened to me as well. I remember this roommate who was in her 50s, she couldn't afford to live alone and she was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And she said, but we're successful, right? You know, she'd indicated that she thought we were successful. And I remember being like, if this is what artistic success is like, you know, it's horrible and terrible. Like we can't even afford beds.
- [33:55]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, that hit home and hit hard for me. Someone who has also been through the mfa, you know, highly educated and underemployed. You know, I think, you know, when I was doing my mfa, I was employed as a person personal trainer. So I made more money doing, getting certified as a personal trainer than I think I ever have being a writer. That's brilliant.
- [34:20]
Lindsay Wong
You had another like, fallback. I had, I had nothing. I wasn't. I don't think I was, you know, thinking like, pragmatically. Right. There's something. I think a lot of us just go into the MFA thinking that we're going to be the exception. We're going to get the book deal, we're going to, you know, get a job in publishing right after. But that's not, you know, the case necessarily.
- [34:40]
Holly Gattery
It wasn't. And I mean, I want to be clear, I wasn't, you know, rolling in bank with being a personal trainer. It was just more than writing yeah, so I. Yeah, it was a rude awakening for me, and I really. I appreciated that a lot. So my final question for you about this particular book is about, oh, how am I going to do this? So we have the ending, but I don't want to talk. I want to gesture to the ending, but not talk about the ending, because the ending, as we move towards it, I found myself completely unprepared for it. And what I mean is I felt breathless, like it was like the best possible suspense movie. And if there's any producers listening, you should make this into a movie. But. But it was also like a soft suspense. And so there was this tension, but a feeling of an inevitable outcome that I could not grasp yet. So with as much specitivity as you would like, I would love for you to talk about feeling your way towards the ending of this novel.
- [35:49]
Lindsay Wong
I always knew going in that it would not be a happy fate for Lucinda, and. And she herself is very much resigned to, you know, being Corpse Spouse number 14.
- [36:00]
Interviewer/Host
Right.
- [36:01]
Lindsay Wong
And so I think the tension for her is not really whether or not I get to live, whether or not I get to get out of this alive, and I'm going to live happily ever after. For her, it's really just about reconciling with what she thinks she has done in her life and really just accepting that her relationships with her sister and grandmother are going to be complicated. They're not going to be neatly tied up. And I think this is something a lot of immigrant women and women of color face. We have these really complex and complicated feelings towards family and the people that we grew up with. And so for her, it's really about, you know, recognizing that and just sort of maybe, I think in some ways, she does become a little bit kinder to herself because, yes, she is cruel to other people. She has these really horrible thoughts, but she's also very unkind towards herself. I think that's what makes her sort of a bearable character or some. Maybe some people will find her sympathetic. And so for me, it was sort of just sort of balancing, you know, the idea of, you know, what does she really get out of this whole experience? Right. Was it for nothing? And yes, you know, it is satirical, it is grotesque, it is a comedy. But at the same time, you know, Lucinda is this millennial. She's this person who has not been given a lot in society, and she has to just do what she has to do just to survive.
- [37:41]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I feel like you've mastered created, refined. I don't know, a new A genre of, like, the absurdist gothic, which, I mean, I've never seen anyone do it this way before, but I love that answer. And like I said, this book is like nothing I've ever read. I found it super thrilling and horrifying. And like I said, it was like when you see something so gross, you're like. But you're laughing at the same time. It's like being tickled uncomfortably. That's the vibe. But there's also these more meditative and parts where you can kind of recoup and regroup and get back into it. Oh, it's just such a great read. I loved it. I love the pacing. I love all of it. Everyone pick up this book. Lindsay, my final question for you. And it's okay if the answer to this is nothing. Holly, leave me alone. But what are you working on now?
- [38:33]
Lindsay Wong
So I am working on another horizon horror novel. The book has not been announced yet, so I don't know how much I can talk about it, but it's going to involve Chinese hell, the 18 levels of hell. There will be some absurdity, there'll be some body horror, and it's going to
- [38:56]
Interviewer/Host
take place in Winnipeg.
- [38:57]
Lindsay Wong
So again, it's like my take on prairie horror. So I think that's where I found my genre. But I don't know if I'm actually a horror writer.
- [39:06]
Interviewer/Host
I don't know.
- [39:06]
Lindsay Wong
I mean, there's elements of horror for sure, but.
- [39:09]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I don't know if I consider you a horror writer either. I mean, to me, your. Your work has too much agility to be categorized that way. Like I said. That's why I said I don't think I'm calling it absurdist gothic, but I also feel like that does it a disservice. You're just like bending and breaking and moving and shifting, you know, genres here. And genres are made up anyway, so like everything else, we'll just call it a satire.
- [39:37]
Lindsay Wong
I'm writing another satire, Right. And be nice to me or I'll write about you. That's what I always tell people.
- [39:42]
Holly Gattery
That is such. I think. I think for all writers, we should just say that. Be nice or we'll write badly about you. But I love also the fact that it's set in Winnipeg. I mean, I know I said that was the last question, but was there any editorial pushback about setting it in Winnipeg? But you know how you always hear like, oh, don't write if you. If you want your book published, maybe this is just a Canadian thing, or maybe it's Just something people say to me. But, like, don't set your book in a Canadian city. It has to be like, New York or London or Paris or la. And then. And then we'll consider it, but don't put it in Canada. Have you ever heard that?
- [40:19]
Lindsay Wong
You know what? I used to hear that a lot from a lot of the writing advice that you get. And then I've just sort of, you know, I've. I've set books in the States and no US publisher has been interested in it, for example. But then I feel like now things are really changing. There's this more of it of interest of having an international setting. So I don't think they're going to ask me to change the Winnipeg setting. Maybe it's unique, right?
- [40:46]
Interviewer/Host
Maybe it's.
- [40:47]
Lindsay Wong
It's interesting.
- [40:49]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I wanted it. I think that's. I mean, I constantly say life is happening wherever we are. It doesn't only happen in these, you know, global metropolises. It happens wherever. And there's interesting, fascinating, worthwhile stories everywhere. And I want to hear about them. Whether they're in Saskatoon or Alert or wherever the stories are, I want to hear them. It doesn't always have to happen in the Big Apple or wherever. No disrespect. Story set in New York. I'm just saying.
- [41:20]
Lindsay Wong
I mean, I'm part of. Villain Hitting is set in New York.
- [41:23]
Holly Gattery
Right.
- [41:23]
Lindsay Wong
But there's always this, you know, this idea that, like, life is boring in
- [41:28]
Interviewer/Host
small towns and it's not right or a small city.
- [41:31]
Lindsay Wong
There's something, you know, it's the writer who makes the setting come alive.
- [41:36]
Holly Gattery
Right.
- [41:36]
Lindsay Wong
It's that character.
- [41:38]
Holly Gattery
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Lindsay, to talk about your incredible book, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies, which was released with Penguin random house in 2026. Lindsay, I look forward to talking to you again about your next wonderful book.
- [41:53]
Interviewer/Host
Thank you so much, Holly. It was such a delight and always
- [41:56]
Lindsay Wong
such a joy to hear from you and speak with you.
- [41:59]
Interviewer/Host
Thank you.