Debut Review: THE GOLD PERSIMMON by Lindsay Merbaum
THE GOLD PERSIMMON by debut Lindsay Merbaum can be described as dark, experimental queer feminist fiction. The novel is set in two hotels in two parallel realities in New York City. Part I begins at the Gold Persimmon, an austere and grossly expensive hotel where patrons can rent rooms and exorcise their crippling grief in privacy. Cly is a check-in clerk, and true believer in the hotel’s purpose. Its order and silence—almost holy—are interrupted when Cly breaks the rules and begins a toxic affair with a regular customer named Edith. Cly discovers Edith’s secret tragedy, and is forced to acknowledge her own.
Jaime, a nonbinary college graduate with student loans, is interviewing at an upscale sex hotel called The Red Orchid in part II. Jaime is instantly likeable with wry humour brought to their unique perspective, as in this introduction:
“’Jaime.’ No one had mentioned pronouns, or used many yet. ‘They/them,’ I added too fast, sputtering, swallowing the last consonant. I’d lost my pronoun swagger. She nodded, still smiling blankly. She probably thought I’d given some odd last name.”
But Jaime’s job interview is cut short by an anomaly. A thick, gray mass covers the sky like “a thing God had been keeping back in his stable until now, eerily familiar, like meeting one’s own inevitable doom.” The majority of the hotel staff flee in terror, leaving Jaime with the manager, a security guard, the desk clerk, and three customers. The security guard insists on sealing off the exits because the mass looks toxic. Their phones lose signal. Jaime starts to fall in love with Zosiah, a hotel customer and likely a prostitute…
The reader enters Merbaum’s deliciously dark setup. The writing is excellent. The hotel backdrop teases out the comically absurd in giggling dildos and faux airplane bathrooms, and our more brutal natures in four-point restraints that are repurposed as the situation grows desperate—and violent.
THE GOLD PERSIMMON launches October 5, 2021. My thanks to the author and Creature Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Lindsay Merbaum is a writer, and also a mixologist who elevates cocktails into works of art. Her Instagram is @pickyourpotions, and you must visit. I want to sip and gulp down every post.