Palimpsest: A Novel
Books / Paperback
Books › Fiction › Fantasy › Contemporary
ISBN: 0553385763 / Publisher: Spectra, February 2009
The lives of four strangers--a locksmith, a bookbinder, a lost girl, and a beekeeper--linked by an enigmatic tattoo intertwine as they search for their shared destiny during nighttime visits to the fantastical and hallucinogenic city of Palimpsest, a world visited only in dreams. Original. 22,500 first printing.
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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.
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