EyebrarianPrize winnersGet the app

Books › Palimpsest

Cover of Palimpsest

Palimpsest

Catherynne Valente

First published 2009 · 367 pages

A lush, erotic fever dream of a hidden city accessed only through the skin of another.

Where to buyBooks like this

What it feels like

Reading this book feels like wandering through a decadent, erotic fever dream. The narrative unfolds at a meandering pace, inviting you to lose yourself in a surreal metropolis where canals are filled with cream and trains are made of ghosts. It is a deeply sensual and melancholic experience, steeped in the aching yearning of characters who are desperately trying to heal their profound grief through obsessive desire. The prose is lush, baroque, and unapologetically poetic, demanding to be savored slowly rather than rushed. It will delight readers who prioritize atmosphere, tactile world-building, and gorgeous sentences over a propulsive plot, offering an intoxicating journey into a world where the grotesque and the beautiful are inextricably intertwined.

Mood
  • dreamlike
  • decadent
  • intoxicating
  • sensual
  • shadowy
Tone
  • lyrical
  • melancholic
  • surreal
  • yearning
  • erotic
Pace
meandering
Themes
obsessive desire · grief and mourning · urban surrealism · the body as a map · found family in exile
The writing
Lush, baroque, and intensely sensory, dripping with poetic metaphor and tactile imagery.
The arc
Begins in profound isolation and grief, spirals into a desperate, shared obsession, and settles into a bittersweet, transformative belonging.
Who it's for
Readers who crave atmospheric, boundary-pushing fantasy where the prose is as intoxicating as the surreal, erotic world it describes.
Content notes
  • explicit sexual content
  • grief and loss
  • body modification
  • surreal body horror

About the book

In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden introduced readers to the unique and intoxicating imagination of Catherynne M. Valente. Now she weaves a lyrically erotic spell of a place where the grotesque and the beautiful reside and the passport to our most secret fantasies begins with a stranger's kiss....Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse--a voyage permitted only to those who've always believed there's another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They've each lost something important--a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life--and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Description from Open Library.

Books like Palimpsest

See why they match