When Mai Nguyen lost her daughter just days after she was born, writing about a similar character in a novel brought her comfort. Her new book, Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, is a heartbreaking but humorous novel about a grieving mother who starts working at a funeral home. Cleo Dang’s world is shattered when she loses her newborn due to complications during labour. Drowning in grief and the discomfort of friends and family, she takes a job at a funeral home and comes to learn intimately about her own loss and what grief means for others. It’s a deeply personal story based on Mai’s own experiences, and despite the subject, she tells the story with levity and hope. This week, Mai tells Mattea Roach about her own grief journey, balancing sorrow and laughter and why she was wrong about funeral home employees.

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• Sarah Leavitt: Illustrating grief too wide for words
• What is extreme caretaking?

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The “wolf hour” is a term for the deep-night period between roughly three and four in the morning. The world is quiet, your guard is down … and if you’re anything like the thriller writer Jo Nesbø, it’s the perfect time to put some of your darkest thoughts to the page. Wolf Hour is the latest of Jo’s gritty crime novels. It’s an immersive story about a troubled detective and a Norwegian journalist solving the same Minneapolis murder, six years apart. Like many of Jo’s books, it’s a “Nordic noir” thriller that explores what drives people to evil … and if there’s a monster in all of us. This week, Jo tells Mattea Roach about exploring humanity’s dark side, adapting his work for television and why all crime writing is political.

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• When young men murder, what can we learn?
• Chris Hadfield — from astronaut to author

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In Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, Yesteryear, a modern day tradwife influencer shares her picturesque farm life with 8 million followers … until one day, she wakes up in the 1800s and has to do it all for real. No running water, no electricity and no way out. But is she really in the past? How far will she go to get back to her perfect life? And how perfect was that life, really? Yesteryear is a twisty, compelling look at what the tradwife trend tells us about fame, tradition and womanhood. This week, Caro joins Mattea Roach to talk about her surprising tradwife protagonist, performing femininity and the Anne Hathaway film adaptation in the works.

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• Justice for Murder Bimbo!
• What is a stag dance?

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Ben Lerner’s new novel is all about how technology shapes memory and connection … and it kicks off when a guy breaks his phone. In Transcription, a man is conducting one final interview with his 90-year-old mentor and celebrated academic, Thomas. When the narrator accidentally breaks his phone before the interview, he can’t bring himself to admit it to Thomas. He does the interview anyway, pretending that he’s recording. Ben uses this premise to explore how technology can both store and destroy memory, and how the changing role of devices is altering our relationships with one another. This week, Ben joins Mattea Roach to talk about interrogating art and fatherhood, staying human in a world of devices and if technology can really capture true connection.

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• 1 marriage, 2 mid-life crises … and a guy named Gluten
• Nnedi Okorafor: Bringing a writer to life in Death of the Author

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Even if you’re living in a dystopia, life goes on. Carrianne Leung’s new novel, Wonderland Road, is about making it work and finding hope in a collapsing society. In a world where basic structures of society fall apart and a mega-corporation rules all, the people of a small suburban community must figure out how to move forward — even when they don’t quite know where “forward” leads. Much like Carrianne’s other work, Wonderland Road explores the tensions that live within families and communities, and though it takes place in the future, familiar divisions of power, class, race and gender are hiding in plain sight. This week, Carrianne tells Mattea Roach about finding hope in a dystopia, her love for Scarborough and why the original protagonist of the book was a raccoon.

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• Writing about catastrophe gives Madeleine Thien courage
• How long could you lie about who you are?

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In Michael Redhill’s new novel, The Trial of Katterfelto, the titular Katterfelto is a traveling magician and scientist in the late 1700s. One day, Katterfelto and his partner Roger come across a mysterious horn that emits a woman’s voice … and that voice calls herself Siri. Siri is from the future, and she tells the two of climate disaster, social unrest and AI takeover. As Katterfelto and Roger start using Siri for their magic show, they must learn how to decipher her messages … and figure out what she’s really warning them about. This week, Michael joins Mattea Roach to talk about his interest in magic, anxieties for the future and writing a different kind of ghost story.

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• What if your dreams could land you in jail?
• In a world run by AI, what makes us human?

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What does it mean to love a place that is so complicated? Pulitzer prize finalist Daniyal Mueenuddin’s new novel, This Is Where the Serpent Lives, dives into class, corruption and the systems of power that dictate life in Pakistan. Over six decades, it follows the lives of both the wealthy elite and those that serve them … and it takes readers all across the country, from its opulent cityscapes to rural farmlands. Although the book is fiction, many of its characters are inspired by real people Daniyal has known in Pakistan while living on his farm there. This week, Daniyal tells Mattea Roach about fictionalizing those people, his own relationship with Pakistan and how the country has changed.

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• How far would you go for your family?
• The beauty and despair of Appalachia

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Julian Barnes says his new novel is his final. It’s called Departure(s), and it’s about two people who fall in love when they’re young and then meet again decades later. The story is told through the perspective of a writer named Julian … who has a lot in common with the author himself. The book was released on Julian’s 80th birthday, and after four decades of writing and a Booker Prize win under his belt, Julian is finally putting down the pen. This week, he joins Mattea Roach to reflect on his literary legacy, why he feels less afraid of death and his recent secret wedding.

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• Ian McEwan has hope for humanity — here’s why
• For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival

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