It's episode 216 and time for us to talk about the genre of Rural Noir / Grit Lit! We discuss what counts as "rural," whether "coastal noir" is a thing, how intense these stories can be, and more! Plus: Should fiction about Gritty (the mascot) be classified as about a "real person"?

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Recommend a genre for us to read in 2026!

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
• American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
• Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
• The White Girl by Tony Birch

Other Media We Mentioned

• True Grit by Charles Portis
• Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
• The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
• Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• The Dry by Jane Harper
• Town Smokes by Pinckney Benedict
• Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader
• Scalped: The Deluxe Edition, Book One, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guéra
• Rez Metal (documentary)
• Rez Metal: Inside the Navajo Nation Heavy Metal Scene by Ashkan Soltani Stone and Natale A Zappia
• Revolutions: Welcome to the Martian Revolution

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 049 - Southern Gothic
• List of states and territories of the United States by population density
  • Rhode Island is the 2nd most densely populated state
• Episode 057 - Nordic/Scandinavian Noir
• Casa Bonita
• Gritty (Hockey RPF) on AO3

11 Rural Noir and Grit Lit books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• The White Girl by Tony Birch
• All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
• Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
• Wounded by Percival Everett
• These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant
• Madukka the River Serpent by Julie Janson
• Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
• Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
• Wade in the Water by Nyani Nkrumah
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

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Join us again on Tuesday, August 19th when it's time for our summer Media update when we'll talk about books, comics, games, music and more!

Then on Tuesday, September 2nd we'll be discussing Book Club Books, whatever that means.