A perennial citation of bombastic mid-Century experimentation and different ways of knowing. MUMBO JUMBO is a kaleidoscope, a conspiracy theory, a satire, a thesis statement--but is it a good novel? Glen Rockney of Rare Candy and I sit down to find out.

This recording will remain paywalled and is also available to subscribers of Rare Candy as a Gain of Fiction episode.

Explorations of the labyrinths hidden below the cult classic hoodoo novel MUMBO JUMBO by Ishmael Reed. Talking the real Book of Thoth and the secrets smuggled into the modern day through the Corpus Hermeticum, the identity of Moses, the real deal about Voodoo, and much, much more.

"The Open Boat" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). First published in 1898, it was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat;

[PREVIEW]

Down into the labyrinth of THE STRONGHOLD: the curious history of NYRB Classics, theories of literary time, the significance of the barbarian, the dream of Great Tartaria, and much more.

The legendary Ken Layne joins me to talk about how he found the desert, what’s going on with UFOs, our Eldritch Republic, the role of the folklorist, and much, much more.

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The ever-insightful Jack BC joined me to discuss a paradoxical little masterpiece: THE STRONGHOLD by Dino Buzzati. To some, better known as THE TARTARIAN STEPPE. It’s a homage to Kafka, a beautiful bit of existentialism, and a torturous confrontation with the nature of time in the lives we live.

Check out Jack on his great podcast BOOKCLUB FROM HELL.

Iain Ryan is the author of 8 books. His latest, THE CASINO, is a pulse-pounding crime story about police corruption in Queensland in the 1980s. He joined me to talk about the writing of this book, his overall Gold Coast Quartet--of which this book is just one part, the uneasy appeal of the 1980s, and much, much more.

Buy THE CASINO

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Matt Cardin is the author or editor of 12 books and ranks among the very finest of contemporary writers of Weird fiction and cosmic horror, as well as one of the most consistently interesting contributors to substack. His most recent book, WRITING AT THE WELLSPRING, is a spiritual guide for creative work and a manual for cultivating your relationship with your own daemon muse.

Author and podcaster Frank Kidd joined me to discuss his page-turning Western/frontier novel MEDICINE WOMAN (winner of Ian Barr’s Indie of the Year 2025), what makes a genre, why the Western still matters, and what makes America Weird.

Buy MEDICINE WOMAN.
Follow Frank on twitter.

A preview of the MADNESS presentation on Cormac McCarthy’s THE CROSSING. Here talking about the very, very strange relationship between man, wolf, and the other world.

UTTER GOODNESS is UTTERly GOOD. The writer Audrey Lee joined me to talk about her exciting new collection of short stories, out now via Farthest Heaven, comprehending America, STONER, and the state of confessional writing.

Buy UTTER GOODNESS

The incredible writer Andrew Edwards joined me to talk about Cormac McCarthy’s oft-overlooked masterpiece THE CROSSING. We get technical on McCarthy’s high style, Crossings of all sorts, the spiritual bond of brothers, and what it means to say that the world is but a tale.

Buy Andrew’s latest book: CROWBAR

The first 3 chapters of my new book THE EARTHEN DARK for your listening pleasure.

Get a copy of the book: bradkellyesque.com.

SPECIAL DEAL: In 2026, if you sign up for a yearly paid subscription to Method and Madness (via substack or patreon), and provide a US postal address, you’ll get a special signed copy of THE EARTHEN DARK, along with two hand-edited manuscript pages of early drafts, and a one-card tarot reading (with card). You’ll also get all the other benefits: early access to all episodes and exclusive access to one-of-a-kind MADNESS presentations.

A peek behind the paywall.

In this episode, I go in depth on Ellroy’s stylistic forebears, play a little Glass Bead Game between AMERICAN TABLOID and very different book, give the quick and very dirty history of CONFIDENTIAL MAGAZINE, and go full-on true crime telling the ‘real’ story of Chuck Rogers.

In this clip from the full episode, I dive into the career of Hugh Everett III, a brilliant physicist who developed the groundbreaking Many Worlds Interpretation—and ushered in the algorithmic age with classified work for shadowy government entities.

Anthony Metivier is known as the magnetic memory master. Using time-tested techniques he has not only taught himself to memorize large quantities of complicated information, but he’s gained a reputation for being among the very best teachers of memory practice. Now, he’s written his second novel in the Decline series, a bold detective saga that puts these memory methods in praxis and takes the reader on a wild ride: serial killers, exotic drugs, and conspiracy, and the gradual fall of civilization.

Find everythingAnthony Metivieris up to here.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic 1836 story, first appearing in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, later re-published in TWICE-TOLD TALES.

Andrew Edwards, the author of what just might be the best novel of 2025, joins me to talk conspiracy, LSD, the interior journey of writing, the 1980s, literary gnosticism, the quantification of everything, and, of course, his certified banger CROWBAR.

Buy Crowbar

Jacob Austin, mastermind behind the fantastic Gnostic Pulp substack joined me to talk about the work of Thomas Pynchon, what the heck was going on with PKD, the nature of UFOs, and much, much more.

Linktree

Some Gnostic Pulp pieces we touched on:

Further Adventures in Pynchonian Reality

Year of the Lichen

Moby-Dick is about UFOs

Writer, critic, and host of the podcast Strange Exiles, Bram E. Gieben joins me to talk about Philip K. Dick’s most unsettling work: THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH: suspicion about reality, the commodification of the mind, PKD’s conception of God, whether sci-fi is still the trash stratum, and much more.


Subscribe to Bram’s substack for his ongoing series CRISIS masculinity, the latest episodes of Strange Exiles, his upcoming book on PKD, and everything else he’s up to.

Bram’s linktree.