Biography of X Biography of X

Biography of X

A Novel

    • 3.9 • 53 Ratings
    • $11.99

Publisher Description

Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2023 by Time (#1), Vulture, and Publishers Weekly, and one of the Best Books of 2023 by The New York Times, the New Yorker, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire, the Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, Lit Hub, and Amazon.

National Bestseller. Winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the 2023 Brooklyn Library Prize, a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

“A major novel, and a notably audacious one.”
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.

When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, CM, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM knows where X was born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, and which finally, in the present day, is being forced into an uneasy reunification.

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow, Biography of X follows CM as she traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America’s divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. At last, when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.

Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2023
March 21
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
416
Pages
PUBLISHER
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
SELLER
Macmillan
SIZE
33.3
MB

Customer Reviews

Kangaroo Cowboy 25 ,

Bizarre

Really well crafted. Actually feels like a real biography and the author does a great job mixing the real world with her own alternate version of history to really convince you of X and this story. Also a really gorgeous portrait of a woman (the fictional author) struggling to make sense of not only her marriage but of the abuse she endured and whether or not it was true (like some of the folks she interviews seem to be suggesting) that *her* suffering and the way she was treated was justified because it fueled art. It’s common for victims to blame themselves or feel like they deserved to be treated badly or were lucky to be with their abusive but often more charismatic partner. Just a really, really thought provoking book and I think it’s going to stay with me for awhile.

frezz ,

So tedious to read

I bought this based on a review. It was a struggle to finish.

Nutzaboutcooking ,

Nope👎 not for me

After 1/4 of the way through I had to put this book down and did not want to pick it back up. Maybe it gets better but I just don’t have the patience to find out

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