Palimpsest

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.