The Alchemy of Paradise by Susannah M. Smith

This book is a premium first copy, similar to the original but not the original.


In The Alchemy of Paradise, a curator-narrator confronts grief, loss, and mortality by arranging the fragments of her life–objects, memories, impressions–into a fragile order. Set in unnamed England, with Venice shimmering at its core, the book follows her attempt to preserve what might otherwise vanish, shaping a collection that makes survival possible. When order fails to yield meaning, she turns to the alchemical, where matter shifts into metaphor and loss becomes transformation.A novel of ideas told through poetic essays and reflections, The Alchemy of Paradise explores the tension between collecting and transmuting, order and disorder. In the spirit of Walter Benjamin’s collections, and in dialogue with writers like W.G. Sebald, Patti Smith, and Leanne Shapton, it meditates on how art and curation allow us to chart a personal map through the shared but solitary territory of grief. Refusing collapse into despair, the book offers curation itself as a restless, ongoing practice of survival and renewal.