In this episode of the Books of Some Substance podcast, Nick chats with Michael Berdan from the New York City noise-rock-slash-industrial-metal band Uniform about Hubert Selby Jr.'s The Room. We talk about the importance of tone and aesthetic in both vocal delivery and fiction's prose, about Berdan's deeply personal connection to Selby Jr.'s writing, and, perhaps most importantly, about how art can be coarse while still delivering a message of hope and compassion.

Uniform's latest full-length, Shame, is available now through Sacred Bones Records and is, truthfully, the absolute perfect musical accompaniment to Hubert Selby Jr.'s writings. Grating, boundary-pushing perspectives of humanity abound. We might all be isolated, but we're not all alone.