Biography of X
£9.99
When X – an iconoclastic artist, writer and polarizing shape-shifter – dies suddenly, her widow, wild with grief, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognised as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been 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, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.
‘Brilliant, astonishing’ Chris Kraus’Sly, brilliant, philosophically acute, bitingly funny, and a pure joy to spend hours with’ Lauren Groff When X – the iconoclastic artist, musician and writer – dies suddenly, CM, her widow, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. The story will lead her deep into the Southern Territory – a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the USA after World War II – before revealing the full weight of X’s secrets, and the depth of her betrayal. ‘A thriller set against a backdrop of political intrigue, an elegy, an art world satire and a thought experiment too… One of the most interesting books you’ll read this year…’ Financial Times’A profound novel about love and what it can license, about the toll – and maybe the con – of genius’ Garth Greenwell’Sprawling and ambitious… Strange and dystopian… This is a major novel’ New York Times
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