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The Palace of Illusions
In this collection, gifted poet and novelist Kim Addonizio uses her literary powers to bring to life a variety of settings, all connected through the suggestion that things in the known world are not what they seem.
In "Beautiful Lady of the Snow," young Annabelle turns to a host of family pets to combat the alienation she feels caught between her distracted mother and ailing grandfather; in "Night Owls," a young college student's crush on her acting partner is complicated by the bloodlust of being half-vampire; in "Cancer Poems," a dying woman turns to a poetry workshop to make sense of her terminal diagnosis and final days; in "Intuition," a young girl's sexual forays bring her closer to her best friend's father; and in the collection's title story, a photographer looks back to his youth spent as a young illusionist under the big tent and his obsessive affair with the carnival owner's wife.
Distracted parents, first love, the twin forces of alienation and the characters in The Palace of Illusions all must contend with these challenges, trafficking in the fault lines between the real and the imaginary, often in a world not of their making.
The stories in this collection have appeared in journals ranging from Narrative Magazine to The Fairy Tale Review , and include the much loved "Ever After," which was featured on NPR's "Selected Shorts."
In "Beautiful Lady of the Snow," young Annabelle turns to a host of family pets to combat the alienation she feels caught between her distracted mother and ailing grandfather; in "Night Owls," a young college student's crush on her acting partner is complicated by the bloodlust of being half-vampire; in "Cancer Poems," a dying woman turns to a poetry workshop to make sense of her terminal diagnosis and final days; in "Intuition," a young girl's sexual forays bring her closer to her best friend's father; and in the collection's title story, a photographer looks back to his youth spent as a young illusionist under the big tent and his obsessive affair with the carnival owner's wife.
Distracted parents, first love, the twin forces of alienation and the characters in The Palace of Illusions all must contend with these challenges, trafficking in the fault lines between the real and the imaginary, often in a world not of their making.
The stories in this collection have appeared in journals ranging from Narrative Magazine to The Fairy Tale Review , and include the much loved "Ever After," which was featured on NPR's "Selected Shorts."
225 pages, Hardcover
First published August 18, 2014
About the author
Kim Addonizio
65 books622 followersAuthor of several poetry collections including Tell Me, a National Book Award Finalist. My Black Angel is a book of blues poems with woodcuts by Charles D. Jones, from SFA Press. The Palace of Illusions is a story collection from Counterpoint/Soft Skull. A New & Selected, Wild Nights, is out in the UK from Bloodaxe Books.
2016 publications: Mortal Trash, new poems, from W.W. Norton, awarded the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, from Penguin.
Two instructional books on writing poetry: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux), and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.
First novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster and chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, second novel, released by Simon & Schuster in 2007.
A new word/music CD, "My Black Angel, "is a collaboration with several musicians and contains all the poems in the book of that name. That and an earlier word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing," available from cdbaby.com. There's an earlier book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (FC2); and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos,, co-edited with Cheryl Dumesnil.
I teach poetry workshops at conferences and online through my web site. I also play blues harmonica, and I'm learning jazz flute. Music is a good place to focus when I'm in a writing slump.
2016 publications: Mortal Trash, new poems, from W.W. Norton, awarded the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, from Penguin.
Two instructional books on writing poetry: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux), and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.
First novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster and chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, second novel, released by Simon & Schuster in 2007.
A new word/music CD, "My Black Angel, "is a collaboration with several musicians and contains all the poems in the book of that name. That and an earlier word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing," available from cdbaby.com. There's an earlier book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (FC2); and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos,, co-edited with Cheryl Dumesnil.
I teach poetry workshops at conferences and online through my web site. I also play blues harmonica, and I'm learning jazz flute. Music is a good place to focus when I'm in a writing slump.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 31, 2016
A fan of Addonizio's poetry, I expected lush and in your face. But these stories are less lyrical than heartfelt. My favorites featured young female protagonists dealing with sex and relationships. Very real. And the story "Cancer Poems" is one I will reread. And not forget.
December 30, 2014
“The pain-body comes, first, from being born in a body. After that there are all the hurts and humiliations, large and small, which wound us. Everyone carries around pain from the past. We all know people who are in pain most of the time — [Eckhart] Tolle would say they have very active pain-bodies. They’re constantly down on themselves, or constantly medicating themselves with alcohol or drugs or entertainment. Whenever you ask how they are, they tell you their troubles. The message is always the same: I’m a basket case, I hurt, I’m overwhelmed, I’m misunderstood, I’m a victim. Nobody appreciates me. I’m ugly, I’m a bad person, I have no talent, I suck, I hate myself.”
The above quote has been lifted from chapter 18 of Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within (W.W. Norton, 2009)—and, yet, it could easily serve as part of an introduction to Addonizio’s most recent collection of short fiction, The Palace of Illusions (Soft Skull Press, 2014).
Reading this book is probably the closest I’ll ever come to binge drinking. (An alcohol-intolerant person can’t resort to method acting techniques in order to understand the psychic state of alcoholic personalities.) Most of the characters featured in Addonizio’s stories resort to psychoactive chemicals to survive their circumstances or their own personalities. Even Doc (the sagest of Disney’s seven dwarves) clutches scotch whisky for compensation when his fairy tale yearnings don’t seem likely to come true in “Ever After.”
My favorite stories in the Palace include: “Night Owls,” in which a young woman of mixed species (half-human, half-vampire) struggles to reconcile blood and love hungers; “Beautiful Lady of the Snow,” in which a seven-year-old responds to her awareness of the destructive sexual impulses of the adults around her by engaging in escalating acts of violence; “Cancer Poems,” in which a dying creative writing student provides Addonizio with the opportunity to enact many of the conversations and frustrations experienced in the typical introductory creative writing class.
I’m currently reading Ordinary Genius just after completing The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, which Addonizio co-wrote with Dorianne Laux (W.W. Norton, 1997). I’ll be using both of the nonfiction texts in my spring semester class in poetry writing so I’m highly entertained by the way themes cross genres in Addonizio’s work. Chapter 21 of Ordinary Genius opens with an epigraph from Salvador Dali: “I don’t need drugs. I am drugs.” Some of the illusions in the Palace are clearly fueled by prescription drugs, some by marijuana, some by mixed drinks, some by chemical potpourri.
Although most of the collection's characters are destructive, whether toward self, other humans, or animal companions, I did not find the stories depressing overall, possibly because of the occasional quirky manifestations of fairy tale or magic realism.
First Reads provided my review copy at an opportune time as I’ll be able to recommend and share snippets from Addonizio’s fiction in order to demonstrate the cross-fertilization that can occur across genres as I encourage next semester's students to take Addonizio’s advice to read voraciously, eclectically, receptively, and opportunistically. (And, yes, when asked to identify my addictions in Chapter 21 of Ordinary Genius, I answered: books and books and, oh yeah, books. I thank Addonizio and First Reads for enabling my addiction.)
February 7, 2015
Read as 4.5 stars, maybe 4.999999 stars.
I would love to give this collection a 5-star rating. When reading a collection of short stories, I fold down the top edge of the first page of a story if I love it, the bottom edge if I really like it. I leave it unfolded if it is less-loved. Looking at this collection, the first page of nearly all of the stories is folded down at the top. I loved - absolutely loved 90% of these stories. They are just "real" for lack of a better term, heartfelt and feeling.
The only thing for me that keeps it from getting the coveted 5-star is that I felt that the opening and closing stories weren't as strong as the rest of the collection. When I was reading the beginning, the book wasn't really drawing me in at all and I was worried that my literary crush on Addonizio was fading. I was, of course, wrong. Those first couple of stories, though, didn't pull me in at all.
The final story, while beautiful in its disturbing scenes, also had some odd issues for me. The characters apart from the narrator weren't fully realized - they seemed more like archetypes than people. While that can definitely work if done well, I felt that it left the last story feeling strangely empty compared to the rest of the stories in the collection.
I would love to give this collection a 5-star rating. When reading a collection of short stories, I fold down the top edge of the first page of a story if I love it, the bottom edge if I really like it. I leave it unfolded if it is less-loved. Looking at this collection, the first page of nearly all of the stories is folded down at the top. I loved - absolutely loved 90% of these stories. They are just "real" for lack of a better term, heartfelt and feeling.
The only thing for me that keeps it from getting the coveted 5-star is that I felt that the opening and closing stories weren't as strong as the rest of the collection. When I was reading the beginning, the book wasn't really drawing me in at all and I was worried that my literary crush on Addonizio was fading. I was, of course, wrong. Those first couple of stories, though, didn't pull me in at all.
The final story, while beautiful in its disturbing scenes, also had some odd issues for me. The characters apart from the narrator weren't fully realized - they seemed more like archetypes than people. While that can definitely work if done well, I felt that it left the last story feeling strangely empty compared to the rest of the stories in the collection.
December 8, 2014
I’m a longtime fan of Kim's work. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear her read and participate in her online poetry workshop (I highly recommend it). The Palace of Illusions was my first foray into her fiction and it did not disappoint--it's every bit as impactful and original as her poetry. The entire collection ties together perfectly with the title piece. Each story is its own palace of illusion….what will emerge from behind the curtain? It’s this feeling that pulls you through the collection and reminds you that whether it’s the wildest situation (like in Night Owl), the most unsettling (Ice) or the most familiar (the writing workshop in Cancer Poems), nothing is all that it seems.
September 16, 2018
Disturbing stories that create an emotional sideshow where the darknesses of ordinary lives are on display.
September 17, 2018
Clipped, stripped, and ripped. This one is tight from the first story to the last.
Read
August 10, 2022Ice kicked me in the teeth
March 26, 2017
i only read a few of these stories/ Like her poems there are some unique parts but overall is kinda bitter high school topics which don't do it for me.
August 11, 2014
www.shelfnotes.com Review
Dear Reader,
This was a very special book of stories which connected with me on many levels. The Palace of Illusions is the perfect title for this grouping, or maybe the Author picked the perfect group of stories for the title. Whichever is true, everything fit perfectly. I've read many short story collections that had me stopping halfway through or maybe picking up one story and leaving the rest for another time. I felt The Palace of Illusions had a larger story to tell once you put everything all together. I love THOSE kinds of short story books the best. Maybe because I'm not the "short-story" kind of gal and I love myself a great big honkin' novel... but whatever the case, I fell in love with over half these stories.
I thought the Author started off very strong and stayed that way for the first half of the collection. I wonder if it feels that way to me because she grouped them so that the first few might have been more my "type". Anyways, I would say that my favorite stories were: Beautiful Lady of the Snow, Breath, Night Owls, The Other Woman and In the Time of the Byzantine Empire. I took some notes on a few of the front runners before I started to see the connection. Without giving much away, I'll give a rundown of a few of the stories.
The first story, "Beautiful Lady of the Snow", is told in the eyes of an innocent, it tells of the corruption surrounding her that starts to envelop her. The story is tragic yet at the same time you start to really understand how easy innocence can rot and can start to crumble apart. I won't say anymore, but this might have been my favorite story of the collection. "Breath" is about a woman attending a yoga session, and this was something I can totally relate to. So, you know how the yoga/meditation instructor tells you to release your thoughts and give your mind a blank slate... yeah? Does this ever work for anyone? Not for me and apparently, not for the main character in this story. I loved that, I loved the relatability and comradeship that this gave me, I AM NOT ALONE! Pretty spectacular is all I'm saying. Lastly, "Night Owls" is a cool take on the inner thoughts of a love triangle, with the 'grass is always greener' moral to ponder over.
Taking all of these stories together (the whole collection) you begin to see a pattern and theme emerge. I love it when that happens, the "OH, I got it!" moment. The narrators of many of these stories aren't great people, they've done things most people would look down upon (if spoken aloud). These 'sins' throughout the stories connect so that we get to see those inner thoughts and relate to the mishaps (maybe we've done something similar but wouldn't like to admit it). The beauty of it lies within the looking glass, we get a different perspective, which ultimately unveils the illusion that surrounds these 'sins' or 'wrong deeds'. People are not perfect, you are not perfect, I'm not perfect... we all make mistakes. The title of this collection The Palace of Illusions is exactly that, a giant palace that houses many types of people (not perfect, very flawed and normal) and each person is very sweet on the outside (what you see) but then the layers pull away as the story unravels and you see the real stuff behind the illusion, the sour stuff within EVERYONE. You may call this bleak, sad, troublesome, etc... but I see it as real, she is giving us the real human condition served on a giant platter of candy. Enjoy!
Happy Reading,
AmberBug
Dear Reader,
This was a very special book of stories which connected with me on many levels. The Palace of Illusions is the perfect title for this grouping, or maybe the Author picked the perfect group of stories for the title. Whichever is true, everything fit perfectly. I've read many short story collections that had me stopping halfway through or maybe picking up one story and leaving the rest for another time. I felt The Palace of Illusions had a larger story to tell once you put everything all together. I love THOSE kinds of short story books the best. Maybe because I'm not the "short-story" kind of gal and I love myself a great big honkin' novel... but whatever the case, I fell in love with over half these stories.
I thought the Author started off very strong and stayed that way for the first half of the collection. I wonder if it feels that way to me because she grouped them so that the first few might have been more my "type". Anyways, I would say that my favorite stories were: Beautiful Lady of the Snow, Breath, Night Owls, The Other Woman and In the Time of the Byzantine Empire. I took some notes on a few of the front runners before I started to see the connection. Without giving much away, I'll give a rundown of a few of the stories.
The first story, "Beautiful Lady of the Snow", is told in the eyes of an innocent, it tells of the corruption surrounding her that starts to envelop her. The story is tragic yet at the same time you start to really understand how easy innocence can rot and can start to crumble apart. I won't say anymore, but this might have been my favorite story of the collection. "Breath" is about a woman attending a yoga session, and this was something I can totally relate to. So, you know how the yoga/meditation instructor tells you to release your thoughts and give your mind a blank slate... yeah? Does this ever work for anyone? Not for me and apparently, not for the main character in this story. I loved that, I loved the relatability and comradeship that this gave me, I AM NOT ALONE! Pretty spectacular is all I'm saying. Lastly, "Night Owls" is a cool take on the inner thoughts of a love triangle, with the 'grass is always greener' moral to ponder over.
Taking all of these stories together (the whole collection) you begin to see a pattern and theme emerge. I love it when that happens, the "OH, I got it!" moment. The narrators of many of these stories aren't great people, they've done things most people would look down upon (if spoken aloud). These 'sins' throughout the stories connect so that we get to see those inner thoughts and relate to the mishaps (maybe we've done something similar but wouldn't like to admit it). The beauty of it lies within the looking glass, we get a different perspective, which ultimately unveils the illusion that surrounds these 'sins' or 'wrong deeds'. People are not perfect, you are not perfect, I'm not perfect... we all make mistakes. The title of this collection The Palace of Illusions is exactly that, a giant palace that houses many types of people (not perfect, very flawed and normal) and each person is very sweet on the outside (what you see) but then the layers pull away as the story unravels and you see the real stuff behind the illusion, the sour stuff within EVERYONE. You may call this bleak, sad, troublesome, etc... but I see it as real, she is giving us the real human condition served on a giant platter of candy. Enjoy!
Happy Reading,
AmberBug
April 17, 2016
Kim Addonizio is one of my favorite non-genre, literary writers. Her most recent collection of short stories showcases her talent for depicting gritty, often drug or alcohol abusing, and achingly lonely characters moving through their lives in desperate circles. Sometimes those characters get glimpses of understanding; usually those glimpses of understanding occur across a chasm too difficult for her characters to travel. In a few of the stories in this collection, Addonizio veers into the territory of urban fairy tale. These couple of tales feel simultaneously odd and completely in line with the other tales in the book. Again, those characters (a dwarf leader of a religious cult waiting for the fabled "Snow White" to save them from their misery) yearn for a connection or a meaning they can't quite make in the dirty and very human urban settings they live in. Addonizio is at her best with tales of romance/relationships gone wrong. A teenage character carrying on an affair with her best friend's father stands out in this collection, as does the short story "Another Breakup Song" about a woman whose disintegrating relationship is just the first one of many, many wearying relationships. Kim Addonizio is an amazing writer and I am anxious for more short stories from her pen. I somehow missed this one when it came out in 2014. I got to enjoy it, new to me, in 2016.
September 16, 2015
I hadn't read any of Kim Addonizio's fiction. Poems, yep. Essays, some if the past and one that struck particularly deep, recently. And I knew that was a remiss on my part and so, this great collection of stories to end my summer reading. I like every story in here, but I LOVE a handful. Like... go-back-and-re-read-it-as-soon-as-I-finished-it, kind of LOVE! Like the kind of LOVE that you look around you to see if there is anyone you can read it a loud to. And an occasion I found some takers who would listen to me. And, all that LOVE for stories that really, really, hurt, so incredibly rendered, so deftly handled. Another thing that struck me in the collection is the overall shape of the book. That real life hurt and strength in pain was balanced with some wicked smart humor. It's a collection that is perfectly formed that way and leaves its own mark when read cover to cover.
July 5, 2015
Unfortunately, many of these just don't ring as stories. We meet a character and what has become the normal situation of her life, and near the end we learn of some deeper secret of the past, which is probably being offered to give us some further context as to why this character is in her current mindset, and close. Good fodder for what could become a story, but to be presented in a book leaves many of them just falling flat. Plus, a vampire story that, for me, shows why interesting vampire stories are hard to come by. Two pieces in particular pricked up my ears: A flash piece in the second person, and the story (in part because it was a story) "Cancer Poems," though it eventually deflated into a rather trite ending.
March 22, 2015
Each story was so good, full of twists and turns. Every new page had a new surprise, they were beautiful. The only disappointment was that most stories felt anticlimactic... They're not as dramatic like the short stories I've usually read. These often end with the protagonist walking away or just contemplating what they'll do next and it leaves so many questions and so much open, but I'm guessing this is how Addonizio wanted it. Either way, beautiful stories.
March 13, 2015
4.999 stars
andre dubus iii has a great blurb on back of book "Kim Addonizio writes like Lucinda Williams sings, with hard-earned grit and grace about the heart's longing for love and redemption, the kind that can only come in the darkest dark when survival no longer even seems likely."
that's what these stories mostly address, and if there is any survival going on, it comes with wounds and damage, but also death and release or even release and love.
andre dubus iii has a great blurb on back of book "Kim Addonizio writes like Lucinda Williams sings, with hard-earned grit and grace about the heart's longing for love and redemption, the kind that can only come in the darkest dark when survival no longer even seems likely."
that's what these stories mostly address, and if there is any survival going on, it comes with wounds and damage, but also death and release or even release and love.
December 20, 2014
I'm generally not a fan of "weird" but the characters in these stories, vampires, circus workers, dwarves, are compelling and sympathetic. Some stories, such as "Cancer Poems", are about more ordinary characters who show a lot of strength and creativity in efforts to survive or make meaning out of a short remaining life. The San Francisco Bay Area is the setting for many of these tales.
February 17, 2015
I was already a fan of Addonizio's poetry, so I knew this would be a treat. I saw her at a reading once a couple years ago and thought she was rad. She played her harmonica and everything.
The harmonica is really a fitting instrument for her because her writing sounds like a harmonica: gritty, soulful, but with a kind of haunting loneliness.
The harmonica is really a fitting instrument for her because her writing sounds like a harmonica: gritty, soulful, but with a kind of haunting loneliness.
February 4, 2015
it's hard to rate an entire collection... but overall, really great female driven stories.
October 1, 2020
The best book I've read this year, hands down!
April 9, 2016
All hits, no misses. Short, concise stories with power-driven by desperate characters.
November 9, 2016
There isn't a form that Addonizio doesn't master! This collection is mesmerizing! Her characters are authentic and recognizable, flawed and hilarious. I am a fan!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews