Review: Canon

Paige Lewis, Canon, (‎Corsair, 2026)

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8960340071

6 stars, non-canonical, non-binary imagination

Inspired by the Biblical Book of Deborah, this is a non-canonical and non-patriarchal story of two prophets. They are non-binary, so they are ‘they/them’.

Yara is chosen by God – and God is personified, here – to defeat Dominic, leader of the Bad Guys. If you need to pick a time, ‘mostly, it’s the ‘90s’.

Adrena has a special power; they can disappear a thing or a person by singing about it. They can communicate directly with God. Nevertheless, He chooses Yara for the Dominic mission. They want to prove God wrong and convince Harpo, leader of the Good Guys who are at war with Dominic, that they are God’s chosen.

This is the first book I’ve read to use the ‘they/them’ convention. And that’s not the only thing that’s innovative.

Yara’s artist mother mixed Sherwin-Williams paints to get the exact colour of their skin – Tumbleweed, Gravel and Narcissus. Yara is a germaphobe, embroiders facsimiles of famous paintings and knows a lot about things like oysters – they call it ‘facting’. They embark on an Odyssean journey, riding on a sunburnt whale named HOWBIG!.

Adrena loves spiders and longs to be as holy as was their mother, who ‘assumpted’ into heaven.

God wears a mosquito-net hat and judges men’s body-building contests, insisting on handing out the trophies Himself.

HOWBIG! speaks in allcaps and exclamation points.

It’s magical realism, easy on the realism. Each chapter is a quirky vignette, not a narration per se. It’s not a true-to-life plot, yet the puzzle-piece structure eventually gets somewhere. As the Big Battle looms, just when a narrative might be emerging, someone has a wacky dream, a soldier transforms into an eagle, or two people inexplicably fall in love.

This is the most imaginative book I’ve read in years. Beautifully literary and so witty, it’s sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.