ALLISON'S PICK

What even just happened? I don’t know how to describe this book, but if “… so that desire (for, say, a mood ring from a stolen Girl Scout catalogue, which – shapeshifting to the beat of Britney Spears' bubblegum melodies – would render my ring finger, I imagined, elegantly wilted, and bind me forever to the heart of a mermaid who was traveling toward me from the future, preceded by an entourage of ancient translucent seahorses) became the signal of danger…” gets you going, you will like it. -AH

A baroque work of intimate myth exploring one woman’s interdimensional search for beauty and embodiment, through kaleidoscopic renderings of hospital corridors, brutal breakups, and passionate romance.

The Fifth Wound is a phantasmagorical roman à clef about passion as a way of life. In one dimension, this is a love story—Aurora & Ezekiel—a separation and a reunion. In another, we witness a tale of multiple traumatic encounters with transphobic violence. And on yet another plane, a story of ecstatic visionary experience swirls, shatters, and sparkles. Featuring time travel, medieval nuns, knifings, and t4t romance, The Fifth Wound indulges the blur between fantasy and reality. Its winding sentences open like portals, inviting the reader into the intimacy of embodiment—both its pain and its pleasures.

Paperback | 288 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"