In this episode, Linda interviews Lee Lai about Cannon, the graphic novel for which Lai was shortlisted for the Carol Shields Prize (the only author on the shortlist with a Canadian connection).The friendship between the protagonist of the same name (Cannon) and Trish puts the very definition of their relationship to the test, complicated in part because Cannon is trying to be responsible to everyone around her—too much so, and the net result is that Cannon fails to advocate for herself.
In this interview, Lai refers to Love in a F** Up World by the activist and educator Dean Spade, which Linda picked up after the interview. She was fascinated by Spade's question: How do we build lasting and effective resistance movements, if we are not even examining the ethics of foundational relationships like friendship? That’s the question that Lee Lai takes up. Lai isn’t dismissive or casual about friendship—it isn’t “just friendship” in that sense, but rather friendship that is fair, ethical, democratic.
Other points of discussion
- loving conflict (as Lee Lai says, “as the only thing that genuinely changes unsustainably bad dynamics”)
- types of conflict: inner, between people, between art production and the way we see the world
- Sarah Schulman, Conflict is Not Abuse (see also Ties that Bind and Let the Record Show)
- chosen families and queer friendships
- betrayal in friendship and unchecked expectations
- Tuck Woodstock (podcaster) and the Gender Reveal podcast
- Randa Abdel-Fattah's interview for the podcast, Between the Covers (David Naimon; see also Mariam Kaba's interview for this podcast)
- Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook
- James McEvoy, Love and Friendship in the Western Tradition : From Plato to Postmodernity (2023)
Producer: Linda Morra; Associate Producer; Maia Harris; Music by Raphael Krux
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