Antigone Editions, 2026

"While reading this slender novel, I felt enveloped by it, calmed, yet glad too when bluntness came. Quiescent, verdant, and beautifully atmospheric." Amina Cain

"Silvery, sylvan, Plain Things for Lustrous evokes a perfumer's cold enfleurage: tropical flowers, too delicate to be heated, pressed against an absorbent oil to infuse it with their scent. Like the pane of glass that holds the petals steady, Merican has captured something mysterious and essential with clarity and care." Larissa Pham

“Like a fairy tale, Plain Things for Lustrous knows the art of withholding and unfolding secrets. the writing is delicate; the metaphors expansive. Déjà vu is a tool, with unnerving repetition harkening Marguerite Duras. In this game of hide and seek, the two voices converge in uncanny memories, beautiful and violent, as if they had not been separated. I loved this book for giving me the key to finding my own plain things.” Carol Mavor