The Malacia Tapestry [Trade Paperback] by Brian Aldiss

Jostling through the light and shadow of Malacias streets goes a crowd of people; dukes, wealthy merchants, bankrupt families, actresses, priests, courtesans, spongers, soldiers, and down-at-heel showmen. They are seen through the eyes of Perian de Chirolo, actor and man-about-town, whose adventures take him through all strata of Malacian society and into the heart of its darkest secrets, both lay and spiritual. Episodes idyllic and chilling follow each other in comic succession . . . This atmospheric novel . . . sets out in dramatic form many of the conflicts and contradictions of our own day and is the most excitingly original story yet told by an author of incomparable vitality and imagination.

A picaresque novel which attempts to capture something of the mysterious world of G. B. Tiepolos etchings. The down-at-heel actor, de Chirolo, sees everything in the embalmed city state of Malacia as art or artifice, until reality catches up with him.