Canon

“This is one of the best novels of 2026. Form-wise, I’ve never read anything quite like it—chatty, polyphonic, unabashedly meta—and content-wise, it manages to take a very old kind of story (chosen one sets out to stop evil warlord) and turn it upside down to see what kind of treats fall out of its pockets. Come for the talking whale, stay for the deep ruminations on belief and fate. This is going to blow your mind.”
—LitHub Most Anticipated of 2026

“Canon is a mind-bending adventure about life, death, and fate that will ruin your life, in the best way.”
—Book Riot Most Anticipated of 2026

“Brilliant…. Lewis is both nodding to the Western texts that serve as the novel’s foundation, and offering an audacious mission statement: that something original can indeed be made from used parts. It can also be funny, chaotic, warm, and impossible to put down.”
—The Brooklyn Rail

“Modern life as some mixture of Lynchian weirdness and Homeric epic . . . a grand blend.” “Canon is an odd duck of a novel in the best way possible—it’s a polyphonic, meta, hilarious epic that recontextualizes the hero’s journey for modern audiences. If you like books that bend conventions and expand your mind, look no further than Paige Lewis’s first foray into fiction.”
—The Chicago Review of Books

“There’s ample room for good humor… off-beat humor and warmth. …Much of Canon’s success comes from Lewis’s precision in placing poems throughout the novel. Beyond achieving the satisfying tension that comes when a poem arrives in an unexpected setting, Lewis also gives narrative beats space to breathe, settle, and expand…. Meaning is made fluid where the expectation could easily be certainty.”
—MudRoom

“I promise that you have never read a book like Canon. It’s a scorchingly brilliant, wildly funny, and deeply moving epic. I loved it so much that upon finishing Canon, I immediately began rereading it.”
—John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything is Tuberculosis

“An unprecedented page-turner . . . I wish I could spend a thousand more pages with the narrator of Canon, whose keenness, kindness, associative brilliance, storytelling authority, and crow-black humor make every line of this utterly singular novel a surprise and a delight . . . Canon filled me with overwhelming joy, joy that such an extraordinary story exists.”
—Karen Russell, bestselling author of The Antidote

“I did not know how badly I needed a funny epic in my life, didn’t know how both funny and epic a novel could be. This book is why I love novels, why I love reading. It is not only structurally pristine and brilliant, but a page turner, and a profound meditation on the meaning of this human journey we are on alone, together. It is truly and thoroughly hilarious, and tender, and beautiful.”
—Tommy Orange, New York Times bestselling author of Wandering Stars

“I keep staring at the words I’ve written to try and describe this novel; words like warm and hilarious and earnest and gorgeous and deeply weird. But none of them really capture its unique brand of magic or Lewis’ singular voice. Perhaps it’s hard to find the language because that’s what Canon does: gives us new language.”
—Carmen Maria Machado, Lambda Award-winning author of In the Dream House

“One of my favorite poets and now one of my favorite novelists. The funniest, most immersive book I have read in such a long time, Canon is a book only Paige Lewis could write. With a voice that is whole their own they have crafted something that is truly original, brimming with humor, beauty, heartbreak, magic, and sharp language that will strike you deep down in your soul. Lewis has taken the hero’s journey and breathed new life, new wit, and new possibility into the genre and just like the best epics, you will make away bewildered by the prose but maybe have learned something necessary about living. In my house this is an instant classic.”
—Danez Smith, author of Bluff

“[A]stonishing. . . This is sublime.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lewis is in line with the postmodern satirists of the 1960s and ’70s, but with a new sensitivity about gender and sexuality, and a wit sharpened by the social media age. Lewis is questioning narrative, but their story is all cool assurance.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“A mind-altering book, on every level. Somehow classic and brand-new at the same time, Canon expands the possibilities of fiction, myth, and philosophy. What a joy to be alive at a time when a book can make you feel like this one does!”
—Library Journal

“Turning the hero’s quest on its head, Lewis’ unique story features intriguing characters and a worthy examination of purpose and heroism.”
—Booklist