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Katharine Coldiron

Ceremonials Paperback – February 11, 2020

by Katharine Coldiron (Author)

4.8 19 ratings

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Fiction. California Interest. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. CEREMONIALS is a twelve-part lyric novella inspired by Florence + the Machine's 2011 album of the same name. It's the story of two girls, Amelia and Corisande, who fall in love at a boarding school. Corisande dies suddenly on the eve of graduation, but Amelia cannot shake her ghost. A narrative about obsession, the Minotaur, and the veil between life and death, CEREMONIALS is a poem in prose, a keening in words, and a song etched in ink.

"CEREMONIALS is a dreamy punch of a book, a haunting, poetic aria. These pages ache with the far reach of love, hum with the slow blossoming of self, crackle with the power of myth. Katharine Coldiron has created something very special here, as fierce and tender as girls, as ghosts."--Gayle Brandeis

"Between poetry and prose, between word and music, Katharine Coldiron's hybrid tour de force CEREMONIALS is a loveletter between art and the body. This book makes my whole body ring like a tuning fork inside its lyric narratives. A specular devotional between artists, words, music and bodies."--Lidia Yuknavitch

"CEREMONIALS starts of with 'Concentrate.' So, we concentrate. We find ourselves immediately in a familiar dialogue that grounds us. The characters are within us, both familiar and mysterious, caught in mist above a lake, caught in a mist somewhere within our bodies. Beyond the words, which are transcendent, the illustrations are gorgeous interpretations and explorations of bodies and the characters within the work itself--with bodies torn and cut apart, like our lives. Corisande is ethereal, that magical elusive part of ourselves, fragile, all-consuming, a kind of lively death. Is she actually there, is she gone, was she ever real to begin with--like Nadja from Andre Breton's iconic novel. Coldiron paints a portrait of love and loss so beautiful, it needs to be consumed."--Joanna C. Valente

"CEREMONIALS pulled me in deeper with every word. Coldiron writes in intricate, intimate prose. CEREMONIALS pulled me in deeper with every word."--Katelyn Wong

"CEREMONIALS is a book about loss, but more importantly, it is a book about love, and the music in Coldiron's language never lets us forget this, as it wraps us in its arms, lets us hear the rhythms of its many hearts, and we 'spin like a top on the grass softened by [its] mist.' We are lucky to have the gift of such a story in our lives."--duncan b. barlow

Print length

134 pages
Language

English
Publisher

KERNPUNKT Press
Publication date

February 11, 2020
Dimensions

6 x 0.5 x 8.75 inches
ISBN-10

1732325154
ISBN-13

978-1732325159
See all details

Katharine Coldiron
12
Hardcover
1 offer from $30.00

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Katharine Coldiron's work has appeared in Ms., Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, LARB, The Rumpus, and many other places. Her novella, CEREMONIALS, is forthcoming from KERNPUNKT Press in 2020.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ KERNPUNKT Press (February 11, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 134 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1732325154
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1732325159
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,215,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #549,226 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.8 19 ratings

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Katharine Coldiron

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Katharine Coldiron’s work has appeared in Ms., the Washington Post, Conjunctions, LARB, the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the Rumpus, NPR, Brevity, and elsewhere. Coldiron earned a B.A. in film studies & philosophy from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. in creative writing from California State University, Northridge. She has read many, many books. Born in the American South to a professor of poetry and translation and a U.S. Navy captain, and raised along the East Coast, she now lives in Los Angeles.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5

19 global ratings

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Alex

I wanted to hate this book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 3, 2020

Verified Purchase

You see, I wanted to hate this book. The jacket copy says it was inspired by a Florence + the Machine album, and I intended to read it solely to have an excuse to sneer at pretentious Millenials. I became even surlier when I realized that Florence + the Machine were in fact not the Flaming Lips, and Ceremonials was an entirely different album than Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Damn these too-precious indie rock acts with their concept albums, and damn me for being too old at this point to even differentiate among them!

You can see where this is going. I picked Ceremonials up, expecting to confirm my biases about the kids these days and to emerge triumphant and gloating. (There are precious few enough victories in this life, and I enjoy savoring even the smallest ones.) However, it turns out that Ms. Coldiron can write. I didn't expect this book to be a gut punch taking me back to the earliest days of grief over my mother's death, but that's what it turned out to be.

There's this Beastie Boys lyric, "If you can feel what I'm feeling/Then it's a musical masterpiece. Hear what I'm dealing with/Then that's cool at least." I do know that as I was reading, I was feeling the pain of a recent loss. Um, thanks? However, my emotional connection to the material drew me into the story, and soon I couldn't put it down.

I wanted to hate this book. I intended to hate this book. But I couldn't. I got sucked in instead.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Lovely and sad and wonderful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

I can't write a review that isn't a repetition of the others. This is such a beautiful book. Yes, poetic, haunting, ethereal... all those adjectives are right and true. It stayed with me for days til I had to read it again.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2022

This is an exquisitely written, haunting, sensual and disturbing read. I had no deep familiarity with the album that inspired it, and I honestly felt in the end that I preferred it that way--I got to experience Coldiron's prose immersively and without trying to hook it back to someone else's meanings. The friendships or girls and women, the disappointments of losing and loving, and all the entrapments that come with growing into a life are explored in a fantasy world that makes its own music. Highly recommend.

Helpful

Nicholas Rogers

Beauty and Pain existing in perfect prose.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 22, 2020

Whispering music and truth in the silence between the words, and singing beauty through the words between the silences.

This is a thing of beauty and power even when the subject veers to dark and pain-filled places.

This not just a book you read, it is a book you exist into in ways few things can ever hope to be.

A meditation on loss, sorrow, and the paths into, between, and beyond these things. Beauty and pain live here, and they will sing you a song in pure prose and sparkling truth that will live with you in your own soul.

To say that I loved it is to profoundly understate my reaction. My highest recommendation, and the highest spot in my library of favorite things.

Helpful

Wendy J.

An engaging, well-written read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 22, 2020

Ceremonials is a novella titled after the 2011 Florence and the Machine album. What the author does particularly well is add on to the backdrop of Ceremonials, the record, while creating an entirely new landscape for Ceremonials, the book, and the book stands on its own. Coldiron is an engaging writing not afraid to experiment with form.

Helpful

Gerri Ravyn Stanfield

A painfully beautiful gothic dream.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 13, 2020

A painfully beautiful gothic dream. No seriously, it’s the book/soundtrack my teenage self needed in the 90’s, sprawled on my bed, writing in my journal with the radio on full blast. I felt heartbroken when it was over, because there was no more to read (which is also just goth AF). Katharine Coldiron is a helluva writer.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 5, 2020

Katharine Coldiron's Ceremonials is a haunting, ethereal journey. From the first page, I was transported to the depths of grief, love, and human connectedness. I will return to this book repeatedly, just to swim in the beautiful writing and soulful observations. I can't wait to read more from this writer!

Helpful

JSH

Haunting and Compelling

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 23, 2020

This book is rich in language, images, and story. Each sentence caused me to pause and be present. A ghost story, a love story, a celebration of longing. This is a book to read, and then read again.

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Ceremonials Paperback – February 11, 2020

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