Peaces: A Novel by Helen Oyeyemi

“Enchanting…the most surprising, confounding, and oddly insightful couple’s trip in recent literary history.” Entertainment Weekly

The prize-winning, bestselling author of Gingerbread; Boy, Snow, Bird; and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours returns with a vivid and inventive new novel about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage.

Synopsis:

When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment—and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favorite breakfast. They seem to be the only people onboard, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, Otto and Xavier begin to see connections to their own pasts, connections that now bind them together.

A spellbinding tale from a star author, Peaces is about what it means to be seen by another person—whether it’s your lover or a stranger on a train—and what happens when things you thought were firmly in the past turn out to be right beside you.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Peaces:

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by The Boston Globe, Marie Claire, Medium, The Millions, Lithub, and O, The Oprah Magazine

“Oyeyemi is a master of leaps of thought and inference, of shifty velocity, and the story’s long setup has the discombobulating quality of walking through a moving vehicle while carrying a full-to-the-brim cup of very hot tea.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Vivid, magic-infused.” —The New York Times

“Enhanting. . .the most surprising, confounding, and oddly insightful couple’s trip in recent literary history.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Welcome back to the magical, maddening milieu of Oyeyemi’s singular fiction, in which trapdoors spring open and revelations emerge like Russian nesting dolls.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“[P]ractically mind altering…Oyeyemi trains her irresistible prose and considerable powers of perception on the uncanny valley that forms between one person’s experience and another’s interpretation, divergences that cast eerie shadows on the course of relationships past, present and future. A superbly fun Rorschach test of staggering creativity.”—Shelf Awareness

“Oyeyemi once again pushes the boundaries of the novel…A surrealist tale of love, heartbreak, and being haunted by the past.”—Kirkus

“Curious characters, strange events, and mysteries abound in Oyeyemi’s delightfully bonkers latest…this exciting and inventive novel brims with unusual insights.” —Publishers Weekly

“Delightfully weird and deliciously eccentric… quite unnerving, and it’s due in large part to Oyeyemi’s choice to conceal the truth, to keep you interested, eager to figure out the mystery.”—Chicago Review of Books

“Oyeyemi has once again crafted a layered modern-day fairy tale replete with interlinked stories and unexpected connections among its vibrant characters.” —Booklist

“Peaces is like the work of a hypnotist: Those open to its allure will inevitably fall under its thrall.” —BookPage

“A wild wonderland full of rabbit holes that seem to lead nowhere and yet somehow connect.” — Ploughshares

“The premise is whimsical, but the narrative unfolds into darker, more existential layers…Oyeyemi’s prose is hypnotic, rendering the story both cinematic and quick to stoke the reader’s own imagination.”— Shondaland

“Peaces is indeed set on a train, but while it contains no small amount of mystery and intrigue, at its core it is a romantic reckoning, and a provocation: What does it mean to really see someone?”—Literary Hub

“A surreal, inspired journey.” —The Millions

About the Author

Helen Oyeyemi is the author of the story collection What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, winner of the PEN Open Book Award, along with six novels, including Gingerbread and Boy, Snow, Bird, which was a finalist for the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.