Staff Pick
Paradise Rot is the erotic sapphic novel that I've always wanted, a slow-burning hallucinatory romance that evokes Han Kang's surreal The Vegetarian in the best possible ways. The story follows a Norwegian student living in a ;renovated warehouse with a strange roommate, and lays witness as their environment, identities, bodies, and the borders between them become less and less stable as everything becomes more and more alive — fungal, even. Jenny Hval knows that desire can sometimes alienate you from yourself, and here she tears the body from sterile conceptualization and pulls it down into the abject where desire lies. As she said on NPR, "a transformation for me is a much more interesting way to look at a narrative than 'story'," and here transformation is the natural state of life. And as its namesake suggests, what makes a thing alive — like the forbidden fruit &mdash is that it also must rot.
This is a sacred text, and I will surely recommend, underline, and reread it with devotion and love for years to come. Recommended By Cosima C., Powells.com
This is a wonderfully odd novella about a Norwegian exchange student who experiences a queer sexual awakening while studying in Australia. Full of psychedelic eroticism, lush descriptions that are gross yet elegant, and dreamlike sensuality that disorients just as it seduces, this psychologically twisted bildungsroman by musician Jenny Hval is an eerie romance that asks all the right questions. Recommended By Ariel K., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A novel about a Norwegian girl Johanna - Jo who moves to the fictitious Australian city Aybourne to study biology. When she arrives to Aybourne Jo lives in an old motel before she finds a room in a strange, old factory with a girl named Carral.
The mushrooms Jo studies become a metaphor for a transcending sexuality; mushrooms can reproduce without gender. How they grow together and cover each other seem to reflect the relationship between Jo and Carral.
A complex, poetic and strange novel about bodies, sexuality and the female gender.
The novel is a feminist, mysterious, cool and describes feelings of sexual awakening and ambiguity that are both familiar and well written. The book also places itself within the artistry of Jenny Hval, taking up the same topics as her music and sound installations, pointing out the direction she has taken as an artist since 2009.
Synopsis
"As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder."
--Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery
Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo's sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.