An Unconventional Love Story in a Brat Summer: Corinna Chong’s Bad Land

Linda speaks with Corinna Chong about her novel, Bad Land, published by Arsenal Pulp Press and long-listed for the Giller Prize. Chong, originally from Calgary, lives in Kelowna, B.C. where she teaches English and fine arts at Okanagan College. She published her first novel, Belinda's Rings, in 2013.

In her opening remarks, Linda explains why she sees the protagonist and main narrator, Regina, as … well, kind of “brat.” She's a fascinating, messy, and lovable character who has buried her life--and the secrets around that life--in the home in which she and her brother, Ricky, were raised ... until he shows up with his daughter, Jez, with a new secret of their own. The tensions that are produced open wide the secrets by the novel's end, revealing both the beauty and violence that have haunted Regina for years.

 Other sources of discussion or references include:

• Henry James’ What Maisie Knew (14.45)
• Aristotle (16:10)
• Nabokov, Lolita (18.30)
• Sinclair Ross, As For Me and My House (18.30; 19:30)
• Unreliable narrators (18:50)
• the geode (and archeology (25:25)

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