Lindsay Merbaum's "The Gold Persimmon" (Coming Oct. 5, 2021)
The Gold Persimmon
274 pages
$16.00
To be aboveboard, I've known Lindsay for a long, long time. We met back when I lived in San Francisco. She's always been a fantastic writer, but this is her debut novel. While I haven't finished it yet, her first chapter is some of the best and most interesting world-building I've seen in a long time.
The prose is fluid and moves across the page at a fantastic pace. The narrative is captivating and the characters even more so. I love that the cover so perfectly exemplifies the dual nature of the storylines without giving much of anything away, but with the more detailed version of the hotel displayed upside down to the reader.
From the first moment your eyes scan the cover, you know this book is unlike any other you'll read this year. You know you're about to be thrown into a world you've never seen before and run into characters that may end up haunting your days long after.
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Published by Creature Publishing, the story revolves around Clytemnestra, "a check-in girl at The Gold Persimmon, a temple-like New York City hotel with gilded furnishings and carefully guarded secrets. Cloistered in her own reality, Cly lives by a strict set of rules until a connection with a troubled hotel guest threatens the world she's so carefully constructed.
In a parallel reality, an inexplicable fog envelops the city, trapping a young, nonbinary writer named Jaime in a sex hotel with six other people. As the survivors begin to turn on one another, Jaime must navigate a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Haunted by specters of grief and familial shame, Jaime and Cly find themselves wrapped in dual narratives in this gripping experimental novel that explores sexuality, surveillance, and the very nature of storytelling."
Lindsay Merbaum is a queer feminist author and high priestess of home mixology serving as an editor of book reviews at Necessary Fiction. Her award-nominated work has appeared in PANK, Electric Literature, Anomalous Press, The Collagist, Harpur Palate, The Rumpus, and Bitch Media, among others.
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She's been getting some great high praise from other authors as well:
"A stunning and vital entry into the genre of queer horror."
- Megan Cass, author of ACTIVAMERICA
"Part suspenseful romp, part meditation on human connection, The Gold Persimmon is a riveting debut."
- Helen Phillips, author of THE NEED
"Merbaum fills her two hotels with haunting characters, propulsive storytelling, and a dreamy, Lynchian atmosphere."
- Lincoln Michel, author of THE BODY SCOUT
"The Gold Persimmon will haunt you: when you wake up from its dream, who's to say you'll still be who you were when it began?"
- Matt Bell, author of APPLESEED
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UPCOMING EVENTS OR OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:
Free event, but RSVP is required.
October 5th, 2021
A Facebook page (and Instagram page) where Lindsay creates and crafts cocktails based on other literary works and characters.
A blog where you can find all of Lindsay's cocktail recipes for her literary-based beverages
A guest blog spot where Lindsay discusses a singular aspect of her writing life and how you can protect your core of creativity when it may be difficult to do so.
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