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by Susannah M. Smith (Author)
"A luminous novel told in snippets, The Alchemy of Paradise considers how best to live in the face of loss. [...] Metaphysical and insightful, The Alchemy of Paradise is an innovative novel."--Carolyn Wilson-Scott, Foreword Reviews
A curator confronts grief, loss, and mortality by arranging the fragments of her life--objects, memories, impressions--into a fragile order.
Set in contemporary England, with Venice shimmering at its core, The Alchemy of Paradise follows her attempt to preserve what might otherwise vanish, shaping a collection that makes survival possible. When order fails to yield meaning, she turns to the alchemical, where matter shifts into metaphor and loss becomes transformation.
A novel of ideas told through poetic essays and reflections, The Alchemy of Paradise explores the tension between collecting and transmuting, order and disorder. In the spirit of Walter Benjamin's collections, and in dialogue with writers like W.G. Sebald, Patti Smith, and Leanne Shapton, it meditates on the ways that art and imagination allow us to chart personal maps through the universal yet individual territories of loss. Refusing collapse into despair, The Alchemy of Paradise offers curation itself as a restless, ongoing practice of creation and renewal.
