What do you think?
Rate this book
The Exhibition of Persephone Q: A Novel
A WALL STREET JOURNAL AND VOGUE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2020
A triumph of tone and intelligence. Percy Q's perspective is skewed and searching at once, and through her eyes, we see afresh not only New York's post-9/11 landscape but also the world of art, and love, and the process of becoming. --Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
Percy is pregnant. She hasn't told a soul. Probably she should tell her husband--certainly she means to--but one night she wakes up to find she no longer recognizes him. Now, instead of sleeping, Percy is spending her nights taking walks through her neighborhood, all the while fretting over her marriage, her impending motherhood, and the sinister ways the city is changing.
Amid this alienation--from her husband, home, and rapidly changing body--a package arrives. In it: an exhibition catalog for a photography show. The photographs consist of a series of digitally manipulated images of a woman lying on a bed in a red room. It takes a moment for even Percy to notice that the woman is herself . . . but no one else sees the resemblance.
Percy must now come to grips with the fundamental question of identity in the digital age: To what extent do we own our own image, and to what extent is that image shaped by the eyes of others?
Capturing perfectly the haunted atmosphere of Manhattan immediately after 9/11--and the simmering insanity of America ever since--Jessi Jezewska Stevens's The Exhibition of Persephone Q is a darkly witty satire about how easy it is to lose ownership of our own selves.
A triumph of tone and intelligence. Percy Q's perspective is skewed and searching at once, and through her eyes, we see afresh not only New York's post-9/11 landscape but also the world of art, and love, and the process of becoming. --Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
Percy is pregnant. She hasn't told a soul. Probably she should tell her husband--certainly she means to--but one night she wakes up to find she no longer recognizes him. Now, instead of sleeping, Percy is spending her nights taking walks through her neighborhood, all the while fretting over her marriage, her impending motherhood, and the sinister ways the city is changing.
Amid this alienation--from her husband, home, and rapidly changing body--a package arrives. In it: an exhibition catalog for a photography show. The photographs consist of a series of digitally manipulated images of a woman lying on a bed in a red room. It takes a moment for even Percy to notice that the woman is herself . . . but no one else sees the resemblance.
Percy must now come to grips with the fundamental question of identity in the digital age: To what extent do we own our own image, and to what extent is that image shaped by the eyes of others?
Capturing perfectly the haunted atmosphere of Manhattan immediately after 9/11--and the simmering insanity of America ever since--Jessi Jezewska Stevens's The Exhibition of Persephone Q is a darkly witty satire about how easy it is to lose ownership of our own selves.
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2020
80 people are currently reading
8255 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews
September 30, 2019
Interesting, idiosyncratic, often captivating book, out this March. I was especially drawn to Jezewska Stevens's language - she is a special talent on the prose level - and the plot's central question is great: is the lead the subject of the nude photographs in her ex-fiance's art exhibition? I love debut novels for their ambition, and was thrilled to see a surprise 3-part structure emerge late.
I do have slight quibbles with the thematic over-usage of pomegranates and a slightly greater issues with the time-frame: this is a 9/11 book that doesn't need to be set when it is. In a way, these issues are compliments. The book doesn't need to show its work to be smart, and it doesn't need the inherent drama of 2001 to be dramatic.
I'm excited to follow this one, and this writer.
I do have slight quibbles with the thematic over-usage of pomegranates and a slightly greater issues with the time-frame: this is a 9/11 book that doesn't need to be set when it is. In a way, these issues are compliments. The book doesn't need to show its work to be smart, and it doesn't need the inherent drama of 2001 to be dramatic.
I'm excited to follow this one, and this writer.
October 20, 2019
So let me get this straight: Our protagonist, sleepless, malleable Percy, quit her job at an auction house, now works as a proof reader for a self-help author on intimacy and sex (oh, the symbolism!), and suddenly finds a picture of her naked sleeping self (shown without her head) at the center of an art exhibition by her ex-fiancé, to whom she still refers as her fiancé. She also stops talking to her Bulgarian new economy husband because she suddenly feels the urge to pinch his nose while he's asleep. Oh, yes, and people around her do not believe that it's her body in the exhibition. Is this really a book about losing ownership of the self in the digital age, about, hold on!, identity? Nope, it's a book about a pregnant woman whose adrift in her own life and who, for rather mysterious reasons, experiences an existential crisis - considering her behavior, the fact that people around her do not believe her seems only logical.
Yes, the novel does talk about Percy's alienation - from New York post-9/11, from her husband, and mainly from herself - but as none of the characters are believable and their motivations remain unclear, there is almost no impact. And then there's the symbolism/metaphor overload (the self help author, the image without the head, the exhibition itself, Percy's real name, the rotting face, the psychic...) that points to...yes, to what exactly? It's all a lofty cloud of allusions, alluding to nothing tangible, nothing of substance. If a book written in 2019 about alienation in the big city seems less relevant for postmodern audiences than Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, published in freakin' 1910 and dealing with the same topic, the book has a problem.
In Greek mythology, Persephone is not only associated with fertility (pregnant Percy, you know), she also becomes the queen of the underworld after Hades abducts and marries her. Hades gives Persephone some pomegranate seeds to eat, and because she tasted food in the underworld, she subsequently has to spend every winter there. Once again: You can connect the Persephone myth with Percy's story in a myriad ways (NY, the husband, the child, the art world, the ex-fiancé, you name it), but you can also leave it be, because there is nothing substantial to gain by doing that.
So all in all, this novel deals with well-known topics and packs them in an overblown, meandering story, thus creating a web of ideas and allusions that unfortunately did not manage to captivate me.
Yes, the novel does talk about Percy's alienation - from New York post-9/11, from her husband, and mainly from herself - but as none of the characters are believable and their motivations remain unclear, there is almost no impact. And then there's the symbolism/metaphor overload (the self help author, the image without the head, the exhibition itself, Percy's real name, the rotting face, the psychic...) that points to...yes, to what exactly? It's all a lofty cloud of allusions, alluding to nothing tangible, nothing of substance. If a book written in 2019 about alienation in the big city seems less relevant for postmodern audiences than Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, published in freakin' 1910 and dealing with the same topic, the book has a problem.
In Greek mythology, Persephone is not only associated with fertility (pregnant Percy, you know), she also becomes the queen of the underworld after Hades abducts and marries her. Hades gives Persephone some pomegranate seeds to eat, and because she tasted food in the underworld, she subsequently has to spend every winter there. Once again: You can connect the Persephone myth with Percy's story in a myriad ways (NY, the husband, the child, the art world, the ex-fiancé, you name it), but you can also leave it be, because there is nothing substantial to gain by doing that.
So all in all, this novel deals with well-known topics and packs them in an overblown, meandering story, thus creating a web of ideas and allusions that unfortunately did not manage to captivate me.
February 14, 2020
"It was unsettling to think that so many of the people who mattered in my life didn't believe me when I told them who I was. That is me, I said. It's me in the photographs. No one seemed to value my conviction. … I was reminded that the people closest to you suffer from a bias. They get used to your habits, used to your face. They hardly see you at all."
Manhattan, 2001: the towers have fallen, terror strikes the air. Though when thirtysomething Percy Q stirs from her sleep one night to find herself a foreigner in her own bed, no longer in harmony with the stranger that has become her husband, she takes to sleepwalking through the soft dark of the city, unscathed by the paranoia that seems to have plagued those around her.
It is always during these dark wanderings that our secretly-pregnant somnambulist moves to step outside — outside of her life, her commitments, her marriage — in order to stave the urge to smother her husband in his sleep. As the “nebula” grows inside her, Percy gets by on the good faith and consultations of strange peers, both on and offline. Among them: a self-help author, a financially-distraught psychic, a friendly neighbor who suddenly (or intentionally) vanishes without a word, leaving his wife a widow overnight.
Then on one opportune day, she comes home to an abandoned package. Inside: an art show catalog with a sequence of the same photograph depicting a woman resting naked in her red bedroom as the world, before and after the collapse, morphs around her. As she recites the name of the presentation, she realizes just what — and who — she’s looking at: “The Exhibition of Persephone Q,” an invention created by a ghost from her past.
This was a smart, lovely, and cleverly insane little book. One less frightened by our pregnant sleepwalker’s nightly rituals than it is with her unbidden journey for purpose and validation. Made all the more intricate against the backdrop of post-9/11 madness, Jessi Jezewska Stevens’ The Exhibition of Persephone Q is a wonderful debut novel of the pleasant mania of losing and finding one’s self in a strange, drifting world. Moreover, it proves tragedy doesn’t just give rise to depression, as Stevens tenderly demonstrates how disaster can also be a door: an excuse to exit or enter a life with or without warning.
Though a tad jarring at times for the mathematically-challenged, like myself, I wholly admired Stevens’ fresh, nostalgic, inquisitive style and the added touch of cool she gives to Percy’s moderately indecisive demeanor. If you fell prey to Halle Butler’s meandering prose in The New Me, the biting wit of Catherine Lacey’s Certain American States or were rapt with the delirium of Danzy Senna’s New People, you’ll devour this book as voraciously as I did.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
Manhattan, 2001: the towers have fallen, terror strikes the air. Though when thirtysomething Percy Q stirs from her sleep one night to find herself a foreigner in her own bed, no longer in harmony with the stranger that has become her husband, she takes to sleepwalking through the soft dark of the city, unscathed by the paranoia that seems to have plagued those around her.
It is always during these dark wanderings that our secretly-pregnant somnambulist moves to step outside — outside of her life, her commitments, her marriage — in order to stave the urge to smother her husband in his sleep. As the “nebula” grows inside her, Percy gets by on the good faith and consultations of strange peers, both on and offline. Among them: a self-help author, a financially-distraught psychic, a friendly neighbor who suddenly (or intentionally) vanishes without a word, leaving his wife a widow overnight.
Then on one opportune day, she comes home to an abandoned package. Inside: an art show catalog with a sequence of the same photograph depicting a woman resting naked in her red bedroom as the world, before and after the collapse, morphs around her. As she recites the name of the presentation, she realizes just what — and who — she’s looking at: “The Exhibition of Persephone Q,” an invention created by a ghost from her past.
This was a smart, lovely, and cleverly insane little book. One less frightened by our pregnant sleepwalker’s nightly rituals than it is with her unbidden journey for purpose and validation. Made all the more intricate against the backdrop of post-9/11 madness, Jessi Jezewska Stevens’ The Exhibition of Persephone Q is a wonderful debut novel of the pleasant mania of losing and finding one’s self in a strange, drifting world. Moreover, it proves tragedy doesn’t just give rise to depression, as Stevens tenderly demonstrates how disaster can also be a door: an excuse to exit or enter a life with or without warning.
Though a tad jarring at times for the mathematically-challenged, like myself, I wholly admired Stevens’ fresh, nostalgic, inquisitive style and the added touch of cool she gives to Percy’s moderately indecisive demeanor. If you fell prey to Halle Butler’s meandering prose in The New Me, the biting wit of Catherine Lacey’s Certain American States or were rapt with the delirium of Danzy Senna’s New People, you’ll devour this book as voraciously as I did.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
Read
February 21, 2023if a sally rooney protagonist was written by ottessa moshfegh in new york, it would be this book.
March 24, 2020
I seriously did not understand this novel. It started out promising. It had this haunting quality to it, but things quickly started to steer off course halfway through. I felt like I was watching an episode of "The Twilight Zone" but in book form. I enjoy a quirky story when I'm in the mood for one but this was a little too weird. Such a bizarre and head-scratching premise. Everything felt pretentious. The author was trying WAY TOO HARD to sound clever and sophisticated. The main protagonist, Percy was the most emotionally flat, creepiest character I've ever read. But at the same time, she had absolutely no depth or substance. Basically she scared the crap out of me. The ending left me feeling hallowed and annoyed. It definitely gave me a headache. The prose was decent though. I think it's the positive thing I can really say. If you like morbid novels, then this one might work for you. Good luck with that.
Thank you, Netgalley and FSG for the digital ARC.
Release date: March 3, 2020
Thank you, Netgalley and FSG for the digital ARC.
Release date: March 3, 2020
August 12, 2023
Another almost-at-random library selection, a dive into unknown waters.
In the autumn after 9/11 30-something Percy finds herself pregnant and somewhat displaced within the city of New York and her own life. She's got a husband she apparently cares about but does almost nothing with (and who is introduced via her sudden compulsion to pinch his nose shut while he is asleep -- is she trying to kill him? She doesn't know either), an irregular job editing for the self-help author downstairs, one friend who she drops in on on-late night hospital shifts, and an entire endless city to drift through on sleepless nights. Suddenly, a package: her ex-finance ex-fiancé-of-ten-years-ago has a new ph0to exhibit and her sleeping, naked form is the subject of all the photos. It's been up for months and no one told her, now no one will even believe it is her.
There are many things this could have, and briefly is -- a dissection of the New York art world and the vampiric artist-muse relationship (Ana Mendieta even gets a name-check), a moody nocturnal city dreamscape of chance encounters and intriguing locales (but she rarely seems to wind up anywhere on her night walks), a weird doppelgänger tale, a reflection on the mass unreality and self-displacement of a city piecing itself together after tragedy -- but all these suggestions are picked up and set down without full development. This is, instead, a very internal novel. There's the suggestion that all of these threads are but a reflection of the protagonist's inner self-uncertainty rather than a living context, all that really matters is a slippery feeling confusion and dissociation that neither she, nor we, can ever really pin down despite the wash of references and allusions offering signposts. The short sections, paragraphs delineated by white space as in an email (though, yes, that's how I write now too) rarely give space for continuous action, reflexive monologue interrupts or diverts the narrative. G.H.'s cockroach turns up to quiz her (I'm certain it's the same one). There's one of those overall ABA structures where the present storyline is A and B is childhood or "what lead up to now" (i.e. State of Grace or Americana or Less Than Zero) but childhood up to now is delivered as a single mass of monologue to someone who has just said they only have 5 minutes to spare (surely this has to be a joke about this particular structural device, even as it indulges in it). Sentence by sentence, there's a precise disaffection, a hazing of the glass that puts us, and Percy, at arms length (from herself); something about the carefully-honed mechanics suggests that MFA style many people recognize but I usually don't (I'm not wrong, Columbia). It's a period piece, but why? The author did not live this reality, she was only 10 at the time, so it lacks that extra weight and conviction of personal experience.
This sounds like a lot of annoyances, but it actually reads well. Page-to-page I was intrigued and empathetic, but all to what destination? What lasting images or thoughts am left with? In the end, this book of possibilities (enough of them to suggest thoughtfulness and finesse) feels just a bit indecisive.
In the autumn after 9/11 30-something Percy finds herself pregnant and somewhat displaced within the city of New York and her own life. She's got a husband she apparently cares about but does almost nothing with (and who is introduced via her sudden compulsion to pinch his nose shut while he is asleep -- is she trying to kill him? She doesn't know either), an irregular job editing for the self-help author downstairs, one friend who she drops in on on-late night hospital shifts, and an entire endless city to drift through on sleepless nights. Suddenly, a package: her ex-finance ex-fiancé-of-ten-years-ago has a new ph0to exhibit and her sleeping, naked form is the subject of all the photos. It's been up for months and no one told her, now no one will even believe it is her.
There are many things this could have, and briefly is -- a dissection of the New York art world and the vampiric artist-muse relationship (Ana Mendieta even gets a name-check), a moody nocturnal city dreamscape of chance encounters and intriguing locales (but she rarely seems to wind up anywhere on her night walks), a weird doppelgänger tale, a reflection on the mass unreality and self-displacement of a city piecing itself together after tragedy -- but all these suggestions are picked up and set down without full development. This is, instead, a very internal novel. There's the suggestion that all of these threads are but a reflection of the protagonist's inner self-uncertainty rather than a living context, all that really matters is a slippery feeling confusion and dissociation that neither she, nor we, can ever really pin down despite the wash of references and allusions offering signposts. The short sections, paragraphs delineated by white space as in an email (though, yes, that's how I write now too) rarely give space for continuous action, reflexive monologue interrupts or diverts the narrative. G.H.'s cockroach turns up to quiz her (I'm certain it's the same one). There's one of those overall ABA structures where the present storyline is A and B is childhood or "what lead up to now" (i.e. State of Grace or Americana or Less Than Zero) but childhood up to now is delivered as a single mass of monologue to someone who has just said they only have 5 minutes to spare (surely this has to be a joke about this particular structural device, even as it indulges in it). Sentence by sentence, there's a precise disaffection, a hazing of the glass that puts us, and Percy, at arms length (from herself); something about the carefully-honed mechanics suggests that MFA style many people recognize but I usually don't (I'm not wrong, Columbia). It's a period piece, but why? The author did not live this reality, she was only 10 at the time, so it lacks that extra weight and conviction of personal experience.
This sounds like a lot of annoyances, but it actually reads well. Page-to-page I was intrigued and empathetic, but all to what destination? What lasting images or thoughts am left with? In the end, this book of possibilities (enough of them to suggest thoughtfulness and finesse) feels just a bit indecisive.
December 30, 2019
I won this book in a goodreads giveaway, and I was excited to read it, until I read it. The Exhibition of Persephone Q by Jessi Jezewska Stephens sounded promising. A young woman, Percy (not my real name), finds herself pregnant, married, and unable to sleep because she keeps holding her husbands nose closed when he sleeps. Her husband, Misha, has no reaction, and this scares her even more than the fact that she keeps doing it. She does worry that if it keeps going she will end up suffocation him, and she keeps letting us (the readers) know that she loves him and she has no idea why she is doing it. She then finds that her picture is in an exhibition of photography put on by her ex-fiance, who she keeps referring to as her fiance. The book seems to meander back and forth through many things that happen or conversations that Percy has. With so little action I found that it felt like it wasn't going anywhere, and at the end I felt that this was true. The actions she takes against Misha aren't resolved, and we never really find out why she has been holding his nose closed. The reader going through this with her, and her hanging out with her ex-fiance (who is annoyingly referred to as the fiance throughout the entire book, which makes it become tedious), and her pregnancy, and her inability to sleep, and nothing seems to really come together.
This book seems to desire to be about the alienation of Percy, but all of this she brought on herself. She is the one who no longer sleeps with her husband because she keeps pinching his nose closed. She is the one walking around New York in the middle of the night. She is the one who chases her ex-fiance to get answers as to why her picture is in his exhibit. And, even though this takes place in post 9-11 New York, the setting doesn't seem important, and besides some conversation, this could take place at any time, anywhere. It doesn't seem to pick up on the paranoia and trauma that followed the 9-11 attacks. Although, maybe this is represented in how paranoid and disturbed Percy seems to be.
Either way, I felt this book tried to hard. The language used didn't seem realistic to me, and I didn't find Percy to be an interesting or relatable character. The language and prose was overdrawn and at times I felt the author was trying too hard to make it sound smart. Of course, if you know anything about the original Persephone, some of the story will make sense, but that is only if you know the story.
This book will be released in February of 2020, and I am glad I won a copy because now I won't have to buy one. I can't say I'd recommend this one.
This book seems to desire to be about the alienation of Percy, but all of this she brought on herself. She is the one who no longer sleeps with her husband because she keeps pinching his nose closed. She is the one walking around New York in the middle of the night. She is the one who chases her ex-fiance to get answers as to why her picture is in his exhibit. And, even though this takes place in post 9-11 New York, the setting doesn't seem important, and besides some conversation, this could take place at any time, anywhere. It doesn't seem to pick up on the paranoia and trauma that followed the 9-11 attacks. Although, maybe this is represented in how paranoid and disturbed Percy seems to be.
Either way, I felt this book tried to hard. The language used didn't seem realistic to me, and I didn't find Percy to be an interesting or relatable character. The language and prose was overdrawn and at times I felt the author was trying too hard to make it sound smart. Of course, if you know anything about the original Persephone, some of the story will make sense, but that is only if you know the story.
This book will be released in February of 2020, and I am glad I won a copy because now I won't have to buy one. I can't say I'd recommend this one.
February 12, 2025
As is becoming normal for me... I finished this book 3 weeks ago and haven't written a review. But hey!!! This was a tough case to crack! It's not that I didn't want to! No, it's just that I couldn't!
Synopsis: Main character receives a package on her doorstep. Inside? A book of the art exhibition her ex-fiancé curated. His photos are famous, like the hang up in the MET and everything. But there's something very strange about them... is it-? Omg. Yes... the woman in all of these photos is actually... main character!!! What!!! But she didn't sign off on this?? Yadda yadda yadda.
This almost monotonous and highly metaphorical novel was hard for me to digest. I got a used copy because I loved the author's short story collection, Ghost Pains, and anticipated more mystical prose. Of course... she delivered. Matter of fact let's talk about that for a sec. Stevens' writing makes you take your time. Makes you chew slowly... makes you extract every bit of flavor from every last morsel, I tell you. I'm particularly fond of her occasional cryptic writing, for no reason other than to be silly; for example, she describes something very simple like opening yogurt as "removing its silver skin." What is she on about. I love it.
And on top of that she uses interesting vocabulary here and there. But it's not suffocating the way she does it, guys, no, it's like she was imbued with this knowledge still in the womb. That's how naturally it comes to her, and that's how easily you can deduce the foreign words' definition. Through CONTEXT. Thank you Jessi Jezewska Stevens. I'm tired of authors using big words when a small word would work just fine.
If you could not tell already, I find her writing dreamlike. Not in the sense that there is an overwhelm of dream logic, everything obeys the laws of physics. No instead, it is not dedicated to direction. I found this style easy to digest in her short stories, but no so much in this novel. While I told you the plot inklings in the synopsis, Stevens won't stick to it if she doesn't want. Plot wavers in and out of the page, and when it's not present, other musings come to light. Of course, everything plays its part, but you must interpret them to understand how it connects. You must think through it. Journal, meditate. One day, hopefully it will penetrate. But I will say, everything ties itself up. Thank goodness.
And just what does all this mean anyway? God I tried so hard to think. I've settled (and am pretty satisfied) with the theme of perception. I LOVE the idea that everyone views you in a different way, and expanding upon that... those perceptions play a role into how you perceive yourself. You may find you are carrying 100 different versions of yourself. You may find you cannot even identify your self the way you thought you could. And with the introduction of the internet??? Oh please, it's hard to wrangle all of you together. So yeah that's my thesis I guess. That's why it took so long to put this review out. I couldn't come to a conclusion for a while there.
Sorry this is just another book with an 1800s painting on the cover. Emblazoned with neon font no less. But I do think this is unique among all of them. Not my fav, but definitely valuable.
Synopsis: Main character receives a package on her doorstep. Inside? A book of the art exhibition her ex-fiancé curated. His photos are famous, like the hang up in the MET and everything. But there's something very strange about them... is it-? Omg. Yes... the woman in all of these photos is actually... main character!!! What!!! But she didn't sign off on this?? Yadda yadda yadda.
This almost monotonous and highly metaphorical novel was hard for me to digest. I got a used copy because I loved the author's short story collection, Ghost Pains, and anticipated more mystical prose. Of course... she delivered. Matter of fact let's talk about that for a sec. Stevens' writing makes you take your time. Makes you chew slowly... makes you extract every bit of flavor from every last morsel, I tell you. I'm particularly fond of her occasional cryptic writing, for no reason other than to be silly; for example, she describes something very simple like opening yogurt as "removing its silver skin." What is she on about. I love it.
And on top of that she uses interesting vocabulary here and there. But it's not suffocating the way she does it, guys, no, it's like she was imbued with this knowledge still in the womb. That's how naturally it comes to her, and that's how easily you can deduce the foreign words' definition. Through CONTEXT. Thank you Jessi Jezewska Stevens. I'm tired of authors using big words when a small word would work just fine.
If you could not tell already, I find her writing dreamlike. Not in the sense that there is an overwhelm of dream logic, everything obeys the laws of physics. No instead, it is not dedicated to direction. I found this style easy to digest in her short stories, but no so much in this novel. While I told you the plot inklings in the synopsis, Stevens won't stick to it if she doesn't want. Plot wavers in and out of the page, and when it's not present, other musings come to light. Of course, everything plays its part, but you must interpret them to understand how it connects. You must think through it. Journal, meditate. One day, hopefully it will penetrate. But I will say, everything ties itself up. Thank goodness.
And just what does all this mean anyway? God I tried so hard to think. I've settled (and am pretty satisfied) with the theme of perception. I LOVE the idea that everyone views you in a different way, and expanding upon that... those perceptions play a role into how you perceive yourself. You may find you are carrying 100 different versions of yourself. You may find you cannot even identify your self the way you thought you could. And with the introduction of the internet??? Oh please, it's hard to wrangle all of you together. So yeah that's my thesis I guess. That's why it took so long to put this review out. I couldn't come to a conclusion for a while there.
Sorry this is just another book with an 1800s painting on the cover. Emblazoned with neon font no less. But I do think this is unique among all of them. Not my fav, but definitely valuable.
December 13, 2023
I do not believe in serendipity. I don’t think there are moments, of which so many people speak, in which a life irrevocably and neatly forks, like a line in your palm. I believe instead that the past returns to you in waves, crashing onto the shore, so that the ground on which you stand is always shifting, like a beach, imperceptibly renewed.
March 24, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4.5
A spiraling story of the puzzling nature of life’s purpose, and a woman’s search to find it.
“An exploration of privacy, memory, and the instability of truth”.
This was a tough book to put down. Percy, a woman searching for life to be surmised of much more grandiose meaning, all while ignoring the beauty of the life that was right in front of her.
I was captivated by this pursuit of discovering who she truly was, and I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it was wrapped up perfectly with a bow.
All Percy had wanted was for someone to truly notice her. For her to amount to something greater than what she felt she currently held. What she sadly neglected to see was that she was so loved by Misha and her friends by simply being herself.
A spiraling story of the puzzling nature of life’s purpose, and a woman’s search to find it.
“An exploration of privacy, memory, and the instability of truth”.
This was a tough book to put down. Percy, a woman searching for life to be surmised of much more grandiose meaning, all while ignoring the beauty of the life that was right in front of her.
I was captivated by this pursuit of discovering who she truly was, and I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it was wrapped up perfectly with a bow.
All Percy had wanted was for someone to truly notice her. For her to amount to something greater than what she felt she currently held. What she sadly neglected to see was that she was so loved by Misha and her friends by simply being herself.
June 2, 2020
3.5 ⭐ rounded up. I don't know why I felt so impatient with this story. The writing is very good. BUT, I found all of the characters a bit grating, oddly for their inactions, not their actions. It felt a bit like looking at a long series of negative images, and it made my head hurt. Perhaps others will have more patience for the aggravatingly introverted main character.
The story does end neatly tied in a bow, which was a tremendous relief. I would definitely read this author again, as she obviously has writing skills and lovely MFA word selection talent.
The story does end neatly tied in a bow, which was a tremendous relief. I would definitely read this author again, as she obviously has writing skills and lovely MFA word selection talent.
November 6, 2023
While I already have a ridiculous number of books on my GR to-read list, browsing at the library for more is still one of my greatest pleasures: so fun. And sometimes you just get lucky, as was the case with this random find by an author I’d not heard of before.
Jessi Jezewska Stevens’ The Exhibition of Persephone Q is billed as a “darkly witty satire.” It doesn’t seem to fit my own definition of satire, but that may be a generational thing. Set in NYC immediately after 9/11 and narrated by a 33-year-old freelance copywriter who admits she is “not all there,” this novel lacked the cynicism I associate with satire, although there was definitely an observant dry humor throughout. While it wasn’t LOL funny most of the time, I did erupt twice with a loud guffaw/chortle/snort that made me glad I was at home and not reading in a crowded public space; it was the kind of outburst that makes other patrons of the coffee shop stop their conversations and look around.
Percy has a psychic, a client she refers to only as “the self-help author,” and a new husband she loves, but is afraid she will kill while he sleeps, and the impulse to smother him shocks and frightens her. She takes to wandering the streets of Manhattan late at night to stay away from her slumbering hubby. She hasn’t yet told him she’s pregnant.
Years previous to the action, Percy had been engaged to an artist, “my fiancé." When she receives an exhibition catalog in the mail for one of his shows, sent anonymously, she becomes convinced that the sleeping model in the pictures is her younger self, although no one else sees the resemblance and she cannot prove it. The catalog, tellingly, calls the exhibition “a profound exploration of privacy, memory, and the instability of truth.” Percy’s obsession with trying to establish her relationship with this artist’s representation explores not only the concept of identity in the modern digital age, but art itself, the dubious capacity for self-knowledge, and, as one reviewer put it, “the process of becoming,” as she contemplates her future as a mother while remembering her own.
I loved her prose style.
“I emerged into the Garment District, turning down streets I had not walked in years. Glass buildings proliferated, as though a lid that had previously suppressed them had been lifted; they grew as diaphanous and out of place as orchids among weeks. I couldn’t remember what it had looked like before. As a girl, I only ever came to the city in winter, when it was too cold to look at anything beyond the rubber toes of my boots and the grip of my mother’s hand, which held mine fast as we sloshed through the snowy streets. She brought me to the ballet, for music, for jazz, plays I couldn’t understand but whose sense of menace I could feel. I wonder now if she was trying to acclimatize me to that menace, vaccinate me against it, so that, later on, when I found out much of life was a Pinter play with larger casts, worse dialogue—mere drafts of what we hoped to say—I would not be surprised. I was duped all the same.”
“The avenue before me was deserted, abandoned to the dark and the mist that brews after rain. I walked the length of Morningside Park. The landscape rose out of the shadows, presenting luminous boulders, the flat of the pond. I ducked into a bodega for a jar of olives. Who could explain these cravings? They came to me and I obeyed. Back on the damp paths of the park, I braced the jar against a knee and wrestled with the lid. The safety seal would not budge. I tried again. In my fiancé’s exhibition I had seemed so powerfully serene. I was a veritable symbol, a woman immune to the passage of time. What a mythic force she was, that woman on the bed. And why it is always a woman, I wondered, who knows all but stands aside, indifferent as the Fates? I thought of my mother. I wrestled the jar. Perhaps I should have aspired to a life of more Homeric proportions. As things stood, it was nine o’clock, and I was on the street, in the mist, at war with a condiment.”
Reviewer/blurb writer Hermione Hoby mentions Stevens’ depiction of all the “small, strange quiddities of being a body in a material and virtual world,” as well as the book’s “melancholy, humor, and perfect oddness.” Sometimes oddness, when done perfectly, can certainly be a plus.
Jessi Jezewska Stevens’ The Exhibition of Persephone Q is billed as a “darkly witty satire.” It doesn’t seem to fit my own definition of satire, but that may be a generational thing. Set in NYC immediately after 9/11 and narrated by a 33-year-old freelance copywriter who admits she is “not all there,” this novel lacked the cynicism I associate with satire, although there was definitely an observant dry humor throughout. While it wasn’t LOL funny most of the time, I did erupt twice with a loud guffaw/chortle/snort that made me glad I was at home and not reading in a crowded public space; it was the kind of outburst that makes other patrons of the coffee shop stop their conversations and look around.
Percy has a psychic, a client she refers to only as “the self-help author,” and a new husband she loves, but is afraid she will kill while he sleeps, and the impulse to smother him shocks and frightens her. She takes to wandering the streets of Manhattan late at night to stay away from her slumbering hubby. She hasn’t yet told him she’s pregnant.
Years previous to the action, Percy had been engaged to an artist, “my fiancé." When she receives an exhibition catalog in the mail for one of his shows, sent anonymously, she becomes convinced that the sleeping model in the pictures is her younger self, although no one else sees the resemblance and she cannot prove it. The catalog, tellingly, calls the exhibition “a profound exploration of privacy, memory, and the instability of truth.” Percy’s obsession with trying to establish her relationship with this artist’s representation explores not only the concept of identity in the modern digital age, but art itself, the dubious capacity for self-knowledge, and, as one reviewer put it, “the process of becoming,” as she contemplates her future as a mother while remembering her own.
I loved her prose style.
“I emerged into the Garment District, turning down streets I had not walked in years. Glass buildings proliferated, as though a lid that had previously suppressed them had been lifted; they grew as diaphanous and out of place as orchids among weeks. I couldn’t remember what it had looked like before. As a girl, I only ever came to the city in winter, when it was too cold to look at anything beyond the rubber toes of my boots and the grip of my mother’s hand, which held mine fast as we sloshed through the snowy streets. She brought me to the ballet, for music, for jazz, plays I couldn’t understand but whose sense of menace I could feel. I wonder now if she was trying to acclimatize me to that menace, vaccinate me against it, so that, later on, when I found out much of life was a Pinter play with larger casts, worse dialogue—mere drafts of what we hoped to say—I would not be surprised. I was duped all the same.”
“The avenue before me was deserted, abandoned to the dark and the mist that brews after rain. I walked the length of Morningside Park. The landscape rose out of the shadows, presenting luminous boulders, the flat of the pond. I ducked into a bodega for a jar of olives. Who could explain these cravings? They came to me and I obeyed. Back on the damp paths of the park, I braced the jar against a knee and wrestled with the lid. The safety seal would not budge. I tried again. In my fiancé’s exhibition I had seemed so powerfully serene. I was a veritable symbol, a woman immune to the passage of time. What a mythic force she was, that woman on the bed. And why it is always a woman, I wondered, who knows all but stands aside, indifferent as the Fates? I thought of my mother. I wrestled the jar. Perhaps I should have aspired to a life of more Homeric proportions. As things stood, it was nine o’clock, and I was on the street, in the mist, at war with a condiment.”
Reviewer/blurb writer Hermione Hoby mentions Stevens’ depiction of all the “small, strange quiddities of being a body in a material and virtual world,” as well as the book’s “melancholy, humor, and perfect oddness.” Sometimes oddness, when done perfectly, can certainly be a plus.
November 10, 2024
It’s kind of as though Ottessa Moshfegh and Jen Beagin had a child that’s was some sad 3rd thing
March 23, 2020
Jessi Jezewska Stevens’ “The Exhibition of Persephone Q” is a compelling and strange debut novel. Set against the still smoldering, soot covered trees of Post-9/11 New York City, the novel follows a newly pregnant woman, Percy, a kind of modern Prufrockian heroine, who one night wakes to find that she no longer recognizes her husband, and then attempt to suffocate(?) by pinching his nose. Later, Percy receives a mysterious package that contains a photography art book with photos featuring a sleeping woman lying in a red room, who Percy believes to be herself but no one else sees the resemblance.
An odd plot, yes, but narrative pulls you in. If drawn-out, the narrative would look like a spiral or vortex. The narratives spins and revolves, nearing the liminal space of dreams and sleep, receding and pulling us back toward reality. And as one would expect, the reader never feels situated, we experience the uncanny with Percy.
Rather than being an impediment to the reader, I found that these complex features aided in Stevens’ novel; she uses her Lynchian plot and mesmeric narrative to delve deeper into the stygian crags and bogs of alienation, loneliness, and selfhood in the Millennial generation.
An odd plot, yes, but narrative pulls you in. If drawn-out, the narrative would look like a spiral or vortex. The narratives spins and revolves, nearing the liminal space of dreams and sleep, receding and pulling us back toward reality. And as one would expect, the reader never feels situated, we experience the uncanny with Percy.
Rather than being an impediment to the reader, I found that these complex features aided in Stevens’ novel; she uses her Lynchian plot and mesmeric narrative to delve deeper into the stygian crags and bogs of alienation, loneliness, and selfhood in the Millennial generation.
February 16, 2020
“I imagined the mist, the chill, the vast navy of the ocean, twin wands hovering over the shore. The world was trash. There was never enough. Lower Manhattan built upon it, we shipped whole landfills out to sea, on barges bellowing mighty horns. And yet how much remained for us to sift, to sort. The ghost of shampoo bottles alighted on the shore. One could drown in all this trash”
.
.
Jessi Jezewska Stevens has created a portrait of a lost woman so unremarkable and pedantic it came out resounding with subtle genius. Told in three parts and stretching her range to almost feel like three different writers, this debut novel had me holding on to every pompous word, each one a small piece of debris from a shipwreck keeping me afloat in the ocean of this propulsive book. Reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh’s unremarkable and sometimes unlikable protagonists, The Exhibition of Persephone Q a dark and masterfully satirical look at being lost and paranoid in a time where everyone was on edge
.
.
Percy is pregnant, living in post 9/11 New York working as a editor for a self help writer, she also feels a strange distance from her husband that she can’t explain. Her humdrum life plays out in a sensitive time period, simply existing until one day she receives an anonymous package in the mail from an exhibit by her ex fiancé that displays a woman on a bed in a series of digitally manipulated photos, and Percy soon realizes the woman is her, or is it? We don’t know, we honestly don’t care that much, but the paranoia grabs Percy by the throat and wont let go. No one believes her, thought to be crazy, a lost woman looking for attention. This strange novel changes when we hit part two to reveal a master class written backstory of Percy, and then the finale in act three pulls everything together. A book that sadly I feel won’t be widely popular but should get more attention with its looming release date March 3rd. Don’t sleep on this one!
.
.
Jessi Jezewska Stevens has created a portrait of a lost woman so unremarkable and pedantic it came out resounding with subtle genius. Told in three parts and stretching her range to almost feel like three different writers, this debut novel had me holding on to every pompous word, each one a small piece of debris from a shipwreck keeping me afloat in the ocean of this propulsive book. Reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh’s unremarkable and sometimes unlikable protagonists, The Exhibition of Persephone Q a dark and masterfully satirical look at being lost and paranoid in a time where everyone was on edge
.
.
Percy is pregnant, living in post 9/11 New York working as a editor for a self help writer, she also feels a strange distance from her husband that she can’t explain. Her humdrum life plays out in a sensitive time period, simply existing until one day she receives an anonymous package in the mail from an exhibit by her ex fiancé that displays a woman on a bed in a series of digitally manipulated photos, and Percy soon realizes the woman is her, or is it? We don’t know, we honestly don’t care that much, but the paranoia grabs Percy by the throat and wont let go. No one believes her, thought to be crazy, a lost woman looking for attention. This strange novel changes when we hit part two to reveal a master class written backstory of Percy, and then the finale in act three pulls everything together. A book that sadly I feel won’t be widely popular but should get more attention with its looming release date March 3rd. Don’t sleep on this one!
July 11, 2020
1.5 stars. I don’t know what 2020 has done to me in the literary world, but I am not finding very many books that are captivating me as of late. This was another dud. I read the first section, it was ok, started reading the second section, and after 3 pages of that drivel, I said to myself it was ok to totally skip it. Moved on to the third section, which was just a continuation of section two, and finally finished. This was not a lengthy book by any means, but it sure took me a while to read it.
This book was just strange. I disliked the format, I do not feel like it had anything new to say. I feel that the author tried to be different in her writing style just because she could. Nothing was new here, in fact, it was boring. Flowery language, without much of a payoff in the end.
Skip it!
This book was just strange. I disliked the format, I do not feel like it had anything new to say. I feel that the author tried to be different in her writing style just because she could. Nothing was new here, in fact, it was boring. Flowery language, without much of a payoff in the end.
Skip it!
January 29, 2020
This was an interesting premise, and the narrator's mood is relatable for anyone who has even been avoidant in the face of a major life change (or changes). There were times I found myself skimming a bit, especially over that particularly long internet comment about waxing. The setting in New York immediately after 9/11 also didn't quite fit or ring true to my memories of that time, and I rather wondered why it was necessary to set it then, or any particular time at all.
I read this entirely on a flight, and found it great for that atmosphere--it moved quickly and didn't make me cry in public.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC.
I read this entirely on a flight, and found it great for that atmosphere--it moved quickly and didn't make me cry in public.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC.
January 24, 2020
The book wasn’t really my cup of tea. Protagonist mainly just walks at night and makes her life more difficult than it needs to be.
November 14, 2021
I need everyone I know to read this so we can discuss. Stevens debut novel gives me big My Year of Rest and Relaxation vibes and the writing style is generally in the same vein as Ottessa Moshfegh with less gross stuff which honestly I like.
The novel is spilt into 3 parts. I LOVED part one, I was really thinking this could be an all-time fave. But then I did not understand part two at all and I thought part three was better than part two but I’m still not sure I “got” it. Which is exactly how I felt after reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation until I slept on it for a few weeks and then I fell in love.
I must read again before putting this in an all-time favourites pile but I underlined something on almost every page. Beautiful and thought provoking writing.
The novel is spilt into 3 parts. I LOVED part one, I was really thinking this could be an all-time fave. But then I did not understand part two at all and I thought part three was better than part two but I’m still not sure I “got” it. Which is exactly how I felt after reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation until I slept on it for a few weeks and then I fell in love.
I must read again before putting this in an all-time favourites pile but I underlined something on almost every page. Beautiful and thought provoking writing.
August 15, 2022
Overall, I really enjoyed it. My one big note is that the author's writing style is pretty affected — no one should be using so many "rather" "ought" "the sort of person who" in 2022, it comes across a little derivative, a little too "Play It As It Lays," especially with the overall mood of the book. But it was a very engrossing read and sparked some thoughts about what is an identity in the internet age.
November 24, 2024
An extremely well written book with a lot of intellectually questioning points throughout. Subtle meditations on a multiplicity of topics across a wide range of import made this a fun and engrossing read. I tore through it Sunday morning over coffee and Oreos. An author I will keep an eye on, since stories like this are rare and fabulous.
Read
April 4, 2021plockade upp denna av en slump på jobbet pga snyggt omslag och döpt efter persefone. blev ej besviken! en kvinna som ser sig själv i en tidigare fästmans fotoutställning, men ingen annan ser att det är hon. tänkte mycket på moshfegs my year of rest and relaxation, samma suggestiva stämning, samma backdrop av new york pre och post 9/11. gillade!
December 18, 2021
Påminde mkt om ett år av vila och avkoppling. Något djupt obehagligt med folk som har avvikande sovvanor eller??? Fattade inte riktigt allt som pågick DISKUTERAR GÄRNA.
August 18, 2023
An eerie, hazy dream of a novel, meditative and strange, I imagined every scene took place (no matter the time of day) in a street lamp-lit dawn or dusk -- the second of its three parts was, for me, the most page-turning, but it wouldn't have captivated if not for the character study that comes before and after
January 16, 2020
I was fortunate enough to win a copy of this book as an advanced reader through Goodreads.
The author, Jessi Jezewska Stevens has demonstrated a remarkable talent. She has taken a story about a woman in post 9-11 New York City and woven it so skillfully and demonstrated her flexibility so well that when I read Parts 2 and 3, I actually thought it was a different writer, so distinctly did the style change. Impressive.
Part 1 presents a young pregnant woman and the insanity that is New York City, especially after 9-11 with the mindset of people being adrift and seeking a safe haven, something or somewhere that made sense in the aftermath of chaos.
She has trouble dealing with her emotions, tries to kill her husband, although she later shows that she is in love with him. She takes long walks in questionable neighborhoods. She befriends and is befriended by strange characters. She seems not only unable to help herself but no one else either. She buys a set of chef's knives in the belief that they will make her an excellent cook and mother. Reality seems illusive.
She gets a package in the mail announcing the opening of an exhibit by her former fiance and is convinced that the woman in the pictures is her. No one; however, believes her and at this point it had me thinking that she is lost in a fantasy world.
Eventually, she relates the story of the missing years between her fiance leaving and her marriage and fills in a lot of the answers to the questions as to why she seems to be such a lost soul.
By the end of the book, she has changed and I was feeling connected to her and understanding that she could be anyone's sister, friend or colleague dealing with so much at a difficult time and rooting for her to feel accepting and accepted. Her actions with a friend who needed medical attention showed the beginnings of her being able to deal with and care about others which gave me hope for Percy Q.
I really liked this story, especially Parts 2 and 3, which made Part 1 much clearer.
The author, Jessi Jezewska Stevens has demonstrated a remarkable talent. She has taken a story about a woman in post 9-11 New York City and woven it so skillfully and demonstrated her flexibility so well that when I read Parts 2 and 3, I actually thought it was a different writer, so distinctly did the style change. Impressive.
Part 1 presents a young pregnant woman and the insanity that is New York City, especially after 9-11 with the mindset of people being adrift and seeking a safe haven, something or somewhere that made sense in the aftermath of chaos.
She has trouble dealing with her emotions, tries to kill her husband, although she later shows that she is in love with him. She takes long walks in questionable neighborhoods. She befriends and is befriended by strange characters. She seems not only unable to help herself but no one else either. She buys a set of chef's knives in the belief that they will make her an excellent cook and mother. Reality seems illusive.
She gets a package in the mail announcing the opening of an exhibit by her former fiance and is convinced that the woman in the pictures is her. No one; however, believes her and at this point it had me thinking that she is lost in a fantasy world.
Eventually, she relates the story of the missing years between her fiance leaving and her marriage and fills in a lot of the answers to the questions as to why she seems to be such a lost soul.
By the end of the book, she has changed and I was feeling connected to her and understanding that she could be anyone's sister, friend or colleague dealing with so much at a difficult time and rooting for her to feel accepting and accepted. Her actions with a friend who needed medical attention showed the beginnings of her being able to deal with and care about others which gave me hope for Percy Q.
I really liked this story, especially Parts 2 and 3, which made Part 1 much clearer.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 5, 2021
I read The Exhibition of Persephone Q in two sittings one night when I couldn't sleep and then the next morning when I was too tired to do anything else, which is, of course, ironic since the novel centers on a woman who cannot sleep. Instead of reading, though, she spends her nights wandering the city and thinking about trying not to think about her impulse to suffocate her sleeping husband.
And despite the tryhard nature of the book's symbolism, I liked it. It does all the trendy things: quirky and kind of unlikeable female protagonist, a mystery that hinges on the (un)reliability of the narrator, NYC post-9/11, uncertainty about having children, long monologues, etc.
But wait. I just realized while I was typing that list that this is pretty much the mirror image or the shadow of 👑 Ottessa Moshfegh's 2018 novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Both novels are darkly funny satires that feature aimeless female protagonists suffering from an unnamed mental health issue. In this one, Percy, the narrator, can't sleep; in R&R the unnamed protagonist pretty much only sleeps. Persephone Q takes place in NYC in the months after 9/11; R&R takes place in NYC in the year leading up to it. Both novels feature oil paintings (from 1882 and 1798 respectively) in the cover art, and both novels' protagonists studied art in college, used to work in art galleries, and may or may not be featured in an artist's work WHILE THEY'RE SLEEPING.
Okay, so R&R is the better book, but like, I'm not mad at this one. It's a feverish and lovely read. The final line caught me in a half-laugh/half-cry.
And despite the tryhard nature of the book's symbolism, I liked it. It does all the trendy things: quirky and kind of unlikeable female protagonist, a mystery that hinges on the (un)reliability of the narrator, NYC post-9/11, uncertainty about having children, long monologues, etc.
But wait. I just realized while I was typing that list that this is pretty much the mirror image or the shadow of 👑 Ottessa Moshfegh's 2018 novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Both novels are darkly funny satires that feature aimeless female protagonists suffering from an unnamed mental health issue. In this one, Percy, the narrator, can't sleep; in R&R the unnamed protagonist pretty much only sleeps. Persephone Q takes place in NYC in the months after 9/11; R&R takes place in NYC in the year leading up to it. Both novels feature oil paintings (from 1882 and 1798 respectively) in the cover art, and both novels' protagonists studied art in college, used to work in art galleries, and may or may not be featured in an artist's work WHILE THEY'RE SLEEPING.
Okay, so R&R is the better book, but like, I'm not mad at this one. It's a feverish and lovely read. The final line caught me in a half-laugh/half-cry.
May 13, 2020
I stumbled across this book by accident but so glad I did. It’s absolutely captivating!
January 18, 2024
I couldn’t finish this one. The concept seemed promising but it felt like a bunch of disjointed thoughts separated into tiny paragraphs that weren’t as satisfying as they wanted to be. I don’t think the characters were fleshed out enough and it was yawn town for me
March 28, 2020
Not exactly bad, but part of the Benjamin Kunkel/Ken Kalfus school: semi-stylish gestures toward meaning, ending up as languid mush.
June 26, 2020
Stop saying 'credenza' (over and over) and stop writing novels where 9/11 is the symbolic background.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews