[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/palmpsestcover_6141.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:310:[[DeusSexMachina Sexually transmitted city.]]]]
Deep in the [[DreamLand recesses of dreams]], there lies the city of Palimpsest. It is a city of great terror and wonder, impossible beauty and unimaginable cruelty, known simply as home to its inhabitants. But for the immigrants, the people who come to the city only at night, it is a place so strange that the outcasts of the real world find that they finally belong.

But they cannot stay more than a night at a time. They come to the city in fours- called Quartos- folded together in spirit by an old fortune-teller so that they each feel what the other three feel when they are in the city. There are rumors that immigrants can come to the city permanently, except none of them know how, and none of the locals wish to tell them.

One Quarto set is composed of Sei Amaya, a blue-haired, train-obsessed woman from Tokyo; November Aguilar, a Californian beekeeper who orders the world into myriad lists; Oleg Sadakov, a locksmith from New York City who hears the secret yearnings of locks and keys; and Ludovico Conti, a book binder from Rome who hears his books come to life. These individuals will be drawn to the fantastical city, and as their fascination to it grows, so too does their desire to become permanent residences.

Whether or not they really should is a question each of them will have to answer.

''Palimpsest'' is a 2009 fantasy novel by Creator/CatherynneMValente.
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!! This novel provides examples of:
* AllJustADream: What the characters initially try to believe, but people around them both in the real world and in Palimpsest disabuse them of this notion.
* AnimalMotifs: Nerezza is constantly given similarities to an eel.
* ArtificialHuman: [[spoiler: The Lyudmila in Palimpsest. Also there is a copy of Lucia who forgives and accepts all of Ludo's faults.]] Ludovico calls them "Pescia", named after the copies of manuscripts monks would make.
* BlessedWithSuck: Attitudes of people who have found Palimpsest vary. Some acknowledge that it has taken everything away from them, but believe it is worth the price. Others know that while it is supposed to be a marvel, they live in fear of it.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality:
** Palimpsest in general seems to have an alien code of morals. [[spoiler:Casimira horribly mutilates November, who she claims to be in love with. She claims it is because gaining Palimpsest must be worth a little suffering, and November needs a concrete demonstration that Palimpsest isn't in her imagination.]]
** The city itself counts as well. [[spoiler: It backed Casimira to win the war not because it thought her cause was just in the way humans understand it, but because her desire was the strongest.]]
* BodyHorror: [[spoiler:November ends up with two of her fingers cut off and bee stings over her face in order to obtain information of her own Quarto.]]
* BrokenBird: Nerezza, after the death of Radoslav by the street cleaners and it's only worse when Ludovico was able to find his Quarto and has a 100% chance of immigrating for good even though he's getting in there by doing nothing and it's all because Casimira specifically helped November by giving her the names of her Quarto. By the end, she's downright ''begging'' November if she herself is worthy of entering Palimpsest despite everything she sacrificed.
* BrotherSisterIncest:
** There's something very strange going on between Oleg and Lyudmila. [[spoiler:It's worse when you realize this is completely in Oleg's head.]]
** Xiaohui and her brother also had at least one encounter as she passed the mark to him. Xiaohui (at least according to him) did it just to see if she could actually bring herself to, but November can tell that he's desperately in love with her. He claims that many immigrants get over the incest taboo because they all want to travel to Palimpsest that badly.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: The four protagonists are good at their jobs precisely because they are so obsessive. That is until they find their new obsession and stop working.
* CityOfAdventure: Palimpsest has everything anybody could possibly be looking for in the way of fantastical obsessions.
* CityOfCanals: Zarzaparilla Street is a cream river covered in coats that must be navigated by gondola.
* ColorMotifs: Green for Casimira: she first appears to November in a green dress, her hair is green and the uniforms for her factory are a green color. Green is a color of life and she wants to bring life back into Palimpsest by opening it up to immigrants once more ''and'' her factory brings to life all the insects and other animals that scamper across the city.
* CoolMask: The women servers in the Third Rail have red painted masks.
* CoolTrain: All of Palimpsest's trains are alive and filled with impossible wonders.
%%* CoveredWithScars: [[spoiler:November.]]
* CreepyChild:
** Casimira's house uses the stillborn child who was buried in its foundations, artificially grown to about twelve-ish, as a way to speak to people. He's cute and charming, but just a ''little'' bit off in pretty much every way. He has kept a room for you.
** Any Palimpsest citizen who has too much money will inevitably bear children who are TheBlank and in a semi-coma. They're not malicious, and there's a cure (children of poor parents, specially adopted for this purpose, ritually lick them into shape, like bears were once thought do with their cubs), but they're deeply disturbing. There's a reason Palimpsest doesn't have a lot of dynasties. [[spoiler: Casimira was such a child. The ''house'' licked her into shape.]]
* CultureClash: It takes time for immigrants to learn the rules of how Palimpsest works. Things like making eye contact or speaking to the locals may be forbidden under very specific circumstances.
* DaddysGirl: November was closer to her father than her mother, as the reason she obsesses reading the same children's book over and over again is because he specifically chose it for her.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Our protagonists seek escapism for a reason.
** Oleg's sister died before he was born, which has left its mark on his psyche.
** November's parents, before her father died, couldn't even stand to be in the same city anymore, forcing her to go back and forth between them.
** Sei's mother was mentally unstable [[spoiler:and ultimately killed herself.]]
* DeadPersonConversation: Oleg's drowned sister Lyudmila appears frequently and counsels him. [[spoiler:She is [[ImaginaryFriend a hallucination]] he has when he forgets his medication.]]
* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Casimira is essentially a twisted version of a usual Disney Princess. Instead of a FriendToAllLivingThings, she runs a factory that creates vermin. Instead of a Disney princess who doesn't have parents, she actually did, but then she got taken in to be raised by her house (which is personified as a young boy that was her stillborn uncle). She also wishes to change the status quo and thus goes to war against citizens of Palimpsest who'd rather ''not'' open themselves up to immigrants and weaponizes the vermin she creates. And she feels like she has the right to do whatever she wants because she's got Palimpsest backing her up.
* DepravedBisexual: What some people become in order to reach Palimpsest.
* DeusSexMachina: Visitors can only arrive at the city by having sex with the right people who bear tattoos that resemble maps of Palimpsest.
* DevotedToYou: Ludo really only wants Lucia. If he sleeps with other people, it is only to reach Palimpsest to find her.
* DoYouWantToCopulate: This is the sexual attitude of most immigrants. They don't care who they're sleeping with. The person is just a way to Palimpsest.
* DownTheRabbitHole: What's actually going on, even though the characters experience it as a dream.
* DreamLand: Palimpsest, or at least, this is what people think at first. It would be more accurate to call it another dimension you can only reach ''by'' dreaming. [[spoiler: It used to be accessible other ways, but it was completely locked down after an invasion. Casimira had to start a war to open the "fuck perchance to dream" route.]]
* DrivenToSuicide:
** [[spoiler:Hester tried to kill herself when she couldn't be rid of Palimpsest. [[BungledSuicide it didn't work]].]]
** [[spoiler:This is what ultimately happened to Sei's mother.]]
* DysfunctionJunction: The four main characters obviously, but pretty much everyone who is touched by Palimpsest has some issues. On one end, they become obsessed with it and can no longer deal with reality. On the other, they become so afraid of it that they will do anything to keep from seeing it.
* EnfantTerrible: [[spoiler: Yumiko]] fell pregnant after acquiring her Palimpsest tattoo. When her son was born, he was ''covered'' in tattooed streets - and not Palimpsest, either, but someplace else, aligned on a grid. And minutes after birth, he looked straight at his mother and said "I want to go back." She had a freak out and gave him up to a couple. In short, according to [[spoiler: Yumiko]], tattoo-bearers don't have children -- ''Palimpsest'' is having children.
%%* EqualGenderEnsemble: There are two women and two men who are the focus.
* EquivalentExchange: How payments in Palimpsest work: a finger nail can give you a train primer, a random list can give you a fancy dress, [[spoiler:Ludovico gives up his tongue so Ululiro can be given ''some'' semblance of victory and be the key that will fully allow people to fully immigrates.]]
* EveryoneIsBi: The characters we follow have little to no compunction about taking men and women for lovers so long as it takes them to Palimpsest. This trope is dear to Valente's heart, reflecting her own bisexuality.
* TheFairFolk: The residents of Palimpsest bear a certain resemblance to them, as highlighted by November's references to ''Literature/TheGirlWhoCircumnavigatedFairylandInAShipOfHerOwnMaking''.
* FanDisservice: People don't necessarily enjoy or even really want the sex they have to get to Palimpsest--it's just a means to an end--and many of the sex scenes are deliberately ''un''sexy because of this.
* FantasticRacism: Palimpsest's inhuman inhabitants tend to look down on immigrants.
* FantasticallyIndifferent: Yeah, Palimpsest is weird. Good luck getting Oleg to notice.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: During his trip at the races, Ludovico glimpses at a newspaper that has an article about the street cleaners. [[spoiler:He later learns that these street cleaners are what prevents Nerezza from fully immigrating -- as they killed the last member of her Quarto -- and he will personally meet up with them near the end of the book.]]
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: The Third Rail speaks in the form of a woman [[spoiler:who, when she takes their mask off, is made to look like Sei's deceased mother, Usagi.]] Later it is revealed that [[spoiler: the Pescia are actually Palimpsest.]]
* FreudianExcuse: Sei has very conflicted feelings toward her mother, and mother-daughter relationships in general.
%%* FriendlyLocalChinatown: Where November meets Xiaohui in San Francisco.
%%* FunnyForeigner: This is how Palimpsest's citizens view immigrants.
* GeniusLoci: Palimpsest is alive and has ''opinions''. [[spoiler: Namely, it made sure Casimira won the war, and it later screws with its own geography so Ludo can find Oleg faster.]]
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: This is implied to have happened to Oleg who has no friends or family. As a child he retreated from the world because American children mocked his Russian accent.
* HappyMarriageCharade: Lucia is so unhappy in her marriage she can hardly breathe. Ludo doesn't notice.
* {{Headdesk}}: Oleg does this on a boat when he realizes that the Lyudmila with him is just [[spoiler: a construct.]]
* IHaveBoobsYouMustObey: Sei tries this on a man at a train station - showing her boobs and her Palimpsest tattoo at the same time. She finds his confusion refreshing.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: In general, EveryoneIsBi, but Ludovico has no sexual interest in men. This changes if the man can take him to Palimpsest.
* InnocentFanserviceGirl: Lyudmila has been wearing a child-size red dress since Oleg met her as a child. She's grown now. It's a very small dress.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Nerezza may be bitter at Ludovico but she's not wrong in that Ludovico basically has done ''nothing'' to find the rest of his Quarto. It was all ''November's'' doing as Casimira's champion that had her go out to find him and direct him to retrieve Oleg.
* LandOfOneCity: As far as anyone can tell, this is what Palimpsest is.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
-->"There are some theories. You know, no one really knows. It's not like there's a manual. A couple of times, I heard that someone wanted to write one, publish it as fiction — but we would know. We would see right through all those made-up characters and silly little narrative twists. We would know what it was: a primer."
* LeavingYouToFindMyself: Lucia flees her marriage to Ludo which she says stifled everything about her true self.
* LittleBitBeastly: Many of Palimpsest's inhabitants appear to be humans with some animal parts--a frog's head, a giraffe's neck, etc. [[spoiler:This is due to them taking a surgery to fight in a war against Casimira's own army of vermin.]]
%%* LonersAreFreaks: The four protagonists.
* LongingForFictionland: What drives the story. One dream of Palimpsest is all it takes for the desire to take root in your heart.
* LongList: One of them is used to described everything that was buried in the foundations for Casimira's house.
* LustObject: Each protagonist has one. Not all of them are human.
* MaybeEverAfter: It's implied that [[spoiler:despite finding a pescia of Lucia who forgives him of all his flaws, Ludovico might pursue a relationship with November.]]
* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: [[spoiler:Casimira, who is only doing what she can to let people enter Palimpsest once again.]]
* MoonRabbit: Sei encounters one on the Train making mochi.
* MotherOfAThousandYoung: Casimira is the "mother" of all the vermin of Palimpsest. They see everything and report back to her.
%%* MythologicalMotifs: Ludovico always likes to make an analogy of Lucia being a chimera.
%%* NarratorAllAlong: [[spoiler:Palimpsest.]]
* NoAntagonist: Ultimately if the characters are struggling with anything, it's their own psychology. The creatures they encounter in Palimpsest actually ''want'' them to come. The closest to a BigBad is [[spoiler:Nerezza, hoping to kill Ludovico because she can't stand the idea of him meeting up with his Quarto to immigrate for good while she will never be able to (because her final Quarto member was killed) and Ululiro, a veteran of the war who despises immigrants and teamed up with Nerezza to prevent Ludovico and his Quarto from entering at all.]]
* NoMedicationForMe: Oleg doesn't refuse his meds so much as fail to take them as he should.
* ObsessedAreTheListmakers: November makes lists about anything and everything, not all of them categories most people would even think of.
%%* OmniscientMoralityLicense: Casimira thinks she has one. She thought so even more strongly when she was thirteen.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Lyudmila. [[spoiler:Actually a vivid hallucination caused when Oleg refuses his meds.]]
* ParentalAbandonment: Casimira was raised by her house after it opened up for her and only her.
* {{Polyamory}}: Nerezza and her two lovers. Justified because [[spoiler:without the last member of their Quartro they can't possibly immigrate to Palimpsest for good and this is as close as they can get.]]
* PurpleProse: Fitting with the dreamlike atmosphere of the story. Even the real world portions of the text have a certain purple tint to them.
* RailEnthusiast: Sei loves the trains of Japan -- not just where they can take her, but the mystery and beauty of the trains themselves. Her normal job is working at a ticket kiosk.
* RotatingProtagonist: The book switches between Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico, as well as switching from their normal lives to their Palimpsest adventures.
* SawStarWarsTwentySevenTimes: November has read the first book in the ''Fairyland'' series, solely because it was the book her father picked out for her, thirty-two times.
%%* SentientCosmicForce: [[spoiler:Palimpsest.]]
%%* SentientVehicle: The train Sei follows in Palimpsest.
* SexuallyTransmittedSuperpowers: The ability to enter Palimpsest always starts by having sex with someone who bears a tattoo of part of the map of the city.
* ShowWithinAShow: November is obsessed with the first book in a children's series because of how her father picked it out for her.
* SiblingYinYang: Xiaohui wants to share Palimpsest with as many people as possible. Her brother puts a lot of effort into keeping any hint of Palimpsest off public forums.
* SingleTargetSexuality: Oleg is Lyudmila-sexual and will only have sex with others if it'll make him see her again, same with Ludovico and his wife, Lucia.
* TalkingInYourDreams: Characters run into people they know on the other side frequently. In Palimpsest, people will understand you regardless of what language you speak.
* TarotMotifs: A tarot reading is drawn for the protagonists early in the story.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Therapy is clearly unaffordable for any of our protagonists.
* TongueTrauma: [[spoiler:Ludovico asks Ululiro to cut off his tongue as payment to let his Quarto pass.]]
* ThreateningShark: Ululiro has a shark's head and she's willing to do ''anything'' to prevent people from immigrating into Palimpsest.
* TrappedInAnotherWorld: Once you have entered Palimpsest once, you will go there whenever you dream, whether you want to or not. Even refusing to have sex won't help--you'll just only go to the area mapped on your skin. The only way to not go is to drug yourself so hard you don't dream at all.
%%* TheUnfettered: Casimira.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Ludovico isn't exactly ugly, but he's certainly nobody anyone would look twice at. Lucia on the other hand is a very attractive, very sensual woman.
* UnreliableNarrator: All of them. All four narrators are probably a little mad.
* TheVoiceless: Those who underwent the surgery to obtain animal parts were condemned to a vow of silence in honor of their sacrifice. [[spoiler:Ludovico becomes this too after he asks Ululiro to cut off his tongue to become the key to let him and his Quarto into Palimpsest.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Lucia chews Ludovico out for being a terrible husband [[spoiler:before she leaves him forever]].
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