The City and the City, China Miéville

The City & the City is a total mind-fuck -- in the best possible way. It's a mystery novel set in two cities that share the same physical space (grosstopical space, in the language of the book), but are in fact in different countries. The mystery is not what's interesting about this book (in fact, I found it confusing and ultimately unsatisfying), but the fascinating conceit of these two overlapping cities nearly makes up for anything that's lacking in the plot. The citizens of each city must constantly "unsee" the people, buildings, vehicles of the other city. The idea of living in a city where you must studiously ignore something like half of what surrounds you seems like an incredible allegory of urban life. Besides urban life in general, I kept wondering what actual places informed the cities. Istanbul was the first place that came to mind. Also the states of what was Yugoslavia (which some clues in the book suggest may be the approximate location of the fictional cities). The idea of a city overlaid on a city felt very familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint from where.