In the eleventh episode, Robert and guest Brad Kelly (author of the book The Earthen Dark and host of the Method and Madness Podcast) discuss absence, a literary theory by French Marxist critic Pierre Macherey regarding the "significant absences" or unspoken voids within a text that expose its contradictory relationship to ideology. The conversation moves from the psychoanalytic implications of the "dead parent" trope in Disney films to the visceral, sensory reality of Brad’s tenure as a sewer engineer in Detroit. They examine the volatile shifting of political goalposts, where formerly leftist stances on anti-interventionism and pharmaceutical skepticism have migrated to the right, anchored by Robert’s personal trauma regarding the AIDS crisis and the medical establishment. Topics range from the "fatbergs" and slaughterhouse runoff encountered in city sewers to the "cosmic horror" of H.P. Lovecraft’s xenophobia and the frontier philosophy of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing. Ultimately, they explore the performative nature of literary realism, the emotional volatility of creative writing workshops, and the necessity of independent publishing in the face of institutional gatekeeping.

You can find Brad's book, The Earthen Dark, HERE. You can find his Podcast, Method and Madness, HERE.

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