Podcast with Tom Lin, “Babylon, South Dakota”

Today, we’re welcoming novelist Tom Lin back to the show, whose new novel Babylon, South Dakota (Little, Brown, June 2026) moves his fascination with the American West into stranger and more uncanny territory. A Chinese family moves to a new farm in South Dakota; after the government takes an interest in a plot near their home for some Cold War-era experiments, the family’s life gets much odder, and much stranger. 

Babylon, South Dakota’s Cold War setting gives the novel a chance to explore nuclear dread, government conspiracies, and even an interest in the paranormal that’s reminiscent of the viral internet phenomenon, the SCP Foundation.

Babylon, South Dakota was reviewed for the ARB in June by Susan Blumberg-Kason. You can read it here.

Tom Lin was born in China and immigrated to the United States when he was four. A graduate of Pomona College, he also holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis. His first novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. He teaches English and creative writing at the University of Iowa.