Lindsay Wong, "Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies" (Penguin Random House Canada, 2026)

Mar 1, 2026

Lindsay Wong, author and creative writing instructor known for dark humor and gothic sensibilities, discusses corpse marriage, villain hitting, and crafting an unlikable yet complex protagonist. She talks about blending gore, satire, and trauma, using footnotes for political bite, and the economic pressures that shape her characters.

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INSIGHT

Corpse Marriage Origin Spark

Corpse marriage emerged from a childhood cultural fear and warnings in Hong Kong that inspired the novel's premise.
Lindsay Wong traced the practice to the Tang dynasty and imagined its modern absurd, grisly consequences for a unlucky protagonist.

INSIGHT

Lucinda As Sarcastic Choice-Less Protagonist

Lucinda's voice mixes sarcasm, trauma, and absurdity to resist stereotypical passive Asian female portrayals.
Wong built her from an MFA-dropout, broke, choiceless millennial background and a ferocious witch grandmother legacy.

INSIGHT

Gore as Poetic Metaphor

Wong balances gore with poetic, moody description so horror serves metaphor rather than mere shock.
She frames decay as commentary on beauty expectations and intergenerational bargains Chinese women endure.

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with acclaimed author Lindsay Wong about her novel, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies (Penguin Random House Canada, 2026).

A 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.
Poor, vicious Locinda Lo is a nobody with a powerful witch for a grandmother and an undead corpse-kid-sister as her only friend. A broke MFA dropout living in Vancouver with six roommates and zero job prospects, she’s buried so deep in debt she might as well be six feet under—and her family is in danger of being buried along with her.
Desperate to escape her financial woes and save her grandmother and sister, Locinda signs a contract with a nefarious company, Joyful Coffin & Co. Matchmaking Services, to be auctioned off as a corpse bride to the highest bidder. Next thing she knows, she’s being smuggled underground into the damp caves where her training coffin awaits.
As Locinda prepares for a rich, dying dearly beloved to claim her as his bride-to-be in the Afterlife, her past becomes twisted with that of her grandmother, Baozhai. A feared and revered Villain Hitter, or witchy curse-monger, Baozhai’s legacy stretches from 1920s China to the Battle of Hong Kong in the 40s to New York City thereafter. Across the generational divide, one thing becomes achingly clear to them both: you can’t outrun your ghosts.
Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies is a daring, genre-bending meditation on life, death, and the murderous cost of living in between. It lays bare the societal and cultural expectations placed on Chinese women and the devastating price of enduring them. This chilling masterclass in fiction cements Lindsay Wong as one of the most provocative Canadian horror writers of our time.

Lindsay Wong is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Wong 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. Follow her on Twitter @LindsayMWong, Instagram @Lindsaywong.M, or visit www.lindsaywongwriter.com.

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