Absurdity and Metafictional Strategy

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery interviews Michael Mirolla about his fascinating novel, How About This…? (At Bay Press, 2025).

It’s a little after the middle of the 21st century. Loving couple Elspeth and Marybeth are both shocked and excited when a stroller with identical twins is left on their back deck with a recorded message that warns them not to try to return the babies or they could face arrest for kidnapping. Using false starts, footnotes, direct approaches to the reader, lists, questions about who the author(s) might be, and even a dose of self-criticism, the story unwinds from that point as El and Mar work hard to create a family under the circumstances. This becomes even more difficult when they discover the babies come with unusual features that perhaps might explain why they were left in the first place. And it all takes place in a disintegrating world that may leave humans incapable of telling their own stories.

Michael Mirolla's publications include a novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award for fiction, as well as three Bressani Prizes: the novel Berlin (2010); the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue (2014); and the short story collection Lessons in Relationship Dyads (2016). His latest poetry collection, At the End of the World, was short-listed for the 2022 Hamilton Literary Award. In the fall of 2019, Michael served a three- month writer’s residency at Vancouver’s Historic Joy Kogawa House, during which time he finished the first draft of a novel, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. A symposium on Michael’s writing was held in Toronto on May 25, 2023. In September of 2023, Michael took part in a writers’ residency in Olot, Catalonia where he completed the latest draft of his novella, How About This …? In the summer of 2024, Michael will take part in a one-month writers’ residency in Barcelona where he hopes to tackle a new draft of The Second Law. When not busy writing, Michael helps run Guernica Editions, a Canadian independent literary publishing house. Born in Italy and raised in Montreal, Michael now makes his home outside the town of Gananoque in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network