"Biography of X" written by Catherine Lacey, narrated by Cassandra Campbell, publishing date 3/21/2023.
An advanced copy of this audiobook was provided courtesy of RB Media, NetGalley and Catherine Lacey. Opinions stated herein are my own. Thank you!

This book was listed as some publications' most anticipated books of 2023, so I was very keen to read this book. Lacey's previous book, "Pew," received great reviews, and I purchased it too - although I haven't read it yet and still on my TBR. So this book is my first Lacey book. From the beginning, I was impressed by her language articulation and prose. As a matter of fact, I was fascinated by her descriptions and sort of forgot to follow details of the alternate history she painstakingly built for this book. I listened to the first half of this book then started over again, taking some notes this time. The protagonist of the book is CM Lucca, a journalist, who was married to a multi-media artist X. After X passed away in 1996, CM learns that X's biography is about to be published, even though X's estate has not authorized the publication. It infuriates CM, who begins her own journey to dig up X's past. As it turns out, X was born in "Southern Territory" in 1945, which gained independence from the rest of US similar to East Germany being established after the war. Lacey builds an intricate alternate history of US, which is fascinating. X is an eccentric artist type who has many aliases and secret pasts. Taking some notes helped me to straighten out characters (there are many) and streamline the timelines. Despite an excellent narration by C. Campbell, I wouldn't recommend an audiobook for this because there are MANY footnotes which is tedious and detracting. I feel either a book or Ebook format might be more enjoyable.
Also, the book is a bit too long for my liking, especially with its density. Audiobook clocks in over 14 hours and longer than a typical book. I felt some of the details of the past could be shortened, even though it feel shameful to cut down such beautiful proses. It is not a particularly fast read, and requires one to pay attention to details. If you do, you will be rewarded with contemplations - is it possible to know those close to you fully? Or yourself? While it wasn't necessarily a "fun" read (I would note that there are some tongue-in-cheek acerbic funny sections if you pay attention, but those parts are far and few in between), it's well-realized and fascinating. I look forward to reading "Pew" soon.

Catherine Lacey's latest, BIOGRAPHY OF X, is her fifth novel—set in an alternate late 20th century—dark and moody, an alluring and intriguing book within a book—crossing between fact and fiction, a fascinating literary adventure by X's widow.

AUDIOBOOK: Spellbinding! Firstly, you must listen to the audiobook! I am a massive fan of the narrator, Cassandra Campbell, and she was the perfect voice offering an award-winning performance and an engaging listening experience. Now I need to buy the hardcover.

When X—an eccentric prominent, elusive artist and writer with a mysterious past who wore many names and faces, falls dead in her office, her widow, C.M. Lucca, is devastated and overwhelmed with grief. The widow sets out to uncover the truth about her late wife.

CM had given up her life and career, making X the center of her universe, leaving her husband for X, and later marrying. X and CM have lived together in New York throughout their marriage, first in the city and then upstate.

After X's death in 1996, C.M. Lucca (wife and biographer) sets out to write a biography of X's life. She soon realizes she does not know the many mysteries of her wife. CM is also a Pulitzer prize–winning crime reporter and digs into the past of the woman who both fascinated and terrified her.

She begins in the small Mississippi town where X was born, which X kept a secret to protect her from agents of the Southern Territory. As Lucca conducts interviews over the next several years, she begins to doubt how well she knew X.

CM's first discovery is that X is a rare refugee from the South, having escaped during an attempted terrorist attack.

Chapter by chapter, Lucca peels back the mystery of X’s multi-jobs and manically productive identities, including Bee Converse (musician), Clyde Hill (author), Martina Riggio (feminist publisher), Cassandra Edwards (author published by Riggio), and Yarrow Hall (filmmaker), among others.

CM learns she was her third wife, and X was not always a kind person. She was selfish, manipulative, cruel, deceptive, narcissistic, violent, and abusive. Who was this woman she fell in love with? Did she push away all the bad things?

Though X was recognized as a vital 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 opened Pandora's box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction.

As the chapters recount Lucca's interviews with the people whom X, under different guises, knew, loved, and exploited through the decades, it also describes an alternate version of American history.

From the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, an alternate history in which the southern U.S. pulled off a surprise secession in 1945.

Through the writing, she tries to make sense of her life, X, and her mysterious life and journey. However, what prompted her to write the biography was a man named Theodore Smith, who published an authorized biography of X, and she thought it was bad and set out to write her own.

C.M. is shocked to learn X was born in the Southern Territory, the portion of the U.S. that splintered off after a far-right Christian overthrow. Until the Reunification in 1996, it was almost impossible for any Southern citizen to escape to the Northern or Western Territories, and the few who did were tracked down to be brought back or killed. X was an exception.

These questions are only compounded when CM meets X's former husband and, after that, speaks to her son. CM keeps searching, peeling back layer after layer of her wife's life, her first years in the Western and then Northern Territories, her past loves, her many aliases, jobs, and disguises, much of which will inform and become her later art.

While they were married, CM knew X would leave without telling her where she was going for blocks of time with no explanation. She walked on eggshells. However, she had no clue about her wife's past. She slowly unravels X's life and all her mysteries. The more she learns, the more Lucca is deeply unsettled about what she meant to her wife.

I found it interesting in the NYT article where Lacey (author) decided soon after starting this project "she would have to rewrite American history just to create a stage on which two women can have a relationship that doesn't have to be justified."

Her novel envisions an alternate U.S. — one in which the country broke apart and the vast majority of the South seceded in 1945, establishing a patriarchal theocracy that lasted for decades. In this history, the political activist Emma Goldman became the governor of Illinois and eventually F.D.R.'s chief of staff, pushing for the New Deal to include protections for same-sex marriage and immigration rights.

In addition, there are re-imaginings of countercultural scenes from the '70s and '80s from pop culture, artists, musicians, art, politics, literature, and beyond. The author seamlessly alters and repurposes the work and words of countless artists and writers, making this a fun adventure.

So who was X?

The novel is kind of like social media and the Instagram world. People are intrigued by the outward fake person but not fully interested in knowing the real person. Only what they are perceived to be.

Character-driven and smartly written, a cross between literary fiction and psychological thriller —BIOGRAPHY OF X is about C.M. as much as it is about X. A thought-provoking novel with dark themes about what we give up when we love someone. Here CM was giving up a part of herself. She had to grieve for her wife's loss and stories she told herself about a woman she did not know. Ultimately grieving for the time she gave up while questioning her own life.

How many of us are unknowable—even and especially to ourselves?

Thank you to #RBMedia #RecordedBooks #NetGalley for a gifted ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 💖 Stars
Pub Date: March 21, 2023
March 2023 Must-Read Books

I am a big fan of Lacey's last book, Pew, and couldn't wait to listen to this ARC of Biography of X. Unfortunately, it's the type of book I think would be better to read rather than listen to. Biography of X is told from the point of view of X's widow, CM. CM is consumed by grief and is still in awe of the brilliant creative force that was her wife. She knows very little of X's life - not even her real name or family - and the book is her investigation into her wife's real life.

As the saying goes, CM "brings the receipts" - the book is a series of interview transcripts and article excerpts. This would be fine if you were actually reading it but listening to the non-stop source citations after every excerpt really drags you out of the book. Apparently there are images in the actual book which of course you can't experience when you listen to the audiobook (which, I should say is very well-read by Cassandra Campbell).

While I enjoyed the actual storyline of the book, I really don't recommend the audiobook version. I think I will be rereading this one day to get the full experience.

Framed as a biography told to dispute an unauthorized account, this book chronicles the life of a world renowned performance artist through the gaze of her widow, CM Lucca. She takes us through the serpentine life of the eponymous X, set against the backdrop of an alternate United States, where a fascist religious movement caused the south to secede in 1945, and the country fractured into three distinct parts: a fascist South, a progressive North, and an apolitical West–an interesting concept, though the execution and presentation of the regions feel somewhat derivative.

Set against this alternate history is a maelstrom of events–X was a novelist named Clyde Hill, she wrote songs for David Bowie and David Byrne as Bee Converse, she designed radical art installations as Vera, she was a notorious celebrity with dozens of identities and none at all. All of the detail makes it almost too easy to get wrapped up in the events of this novel–by the end Lacey has created a blurry patchwork full of X’s experiences. But the real substance of this novel is not in the events. It doesn’t really matter what X was doing in Italy in the ‘70s, the details of her highly controversial blue films are not important. The real pleasure and excitement in this book comes from peeling back the layers of the world around X, the people around her, her parents, each person she took advantage of to ensure her survival; it comes from peeling back the layers of CM Lucca, of their marriage.

Catherine Lacey has created an assault on the senses with this novel, blending fact and fiction in the narrative and in the quotes attributed to various characters–it creates an immersive experience not unlike Vera’s infamous art installations. Truth be told, the book can be a bit much at times, but it’s one that I feel confident I will come back to over and over again, even if just to parse a single reference.

Catherine Lacey returns with a new novel that is unique in its plot and format. I found myself fascinated by its construction. I love a made up artist with an immense amount of sources/footnotes and images. The line between reality and fiction is blurred, where the world of this novel blends with real artists and history while creating an entirely new world within its pages.

This is a novel about grief, the loss of a spouse and how it is to see your spouse through the eyes of others and history itself. It is also about art, politics, and identity. It will be read differently by each reader and their takeaways will be their own. It has enough depth and complexity to spend a lot of time in. To piece together X’s life and motivations or to sit with the spouse’s motivations as she refuses to let X go. To let go would be to grieve and look upon herself, when looking to X was a mission and distraction.

I loved Pew, and Biography of X delivers something entirely different and original.
The audiobook is really well done and incorporates the footnotes seamlessly.

hanks to NetGalley for an early audiobook to listen to for review. The narrator was Cassandra Campbell, who is one of my favorites.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the novel. X is not likable, which in some stories is ok but in this, it just made me increasingly frustrated. The choice to set the novel in an alternate USA felt unnecessary—I don’t feel like the world was well-developed. It seemed like the reason was to be able to say X interacted with real people and did things that obviously didn’t happen. This alternate world was referenced (outside X relationships) so little it felt like it was only done so to remind you it is not our world. I didn’t enjoy reading any of the characters and the book seemed to drag on—it felt way too long.

Our narrator, Charlotte Marie (CM), tells us the story of her late wife, a woman known as X. Not much is known about X, other than she’s a big, mysterious name in the art world. CM decides to delve into her late wife’s history and write a biography of her life. For starters, she needs to find out where X was born, which even she (her wife) does not know. Secrets, lies and betrayal bubble to the surface, as well as the awful truth about X’s hometown in the Southern Territory.

I liked this a lot. Art, activism, self-indulgence. I really did enjoy unravelling X’s story and hearing the many lives she’d lived. However, I can’t bring myself to rate it higher than a 3.5. It was maybe a little too long, as I did find myself zoning out a little at times. I also don’t believe I’ll be thinking about this book in a few months or a year from now, but I would recommend this audiobook (though truthfully think I would’ve dnf’d had I physically read it).

3.5 ⭐️

At a certain point in Biography of X, one of the eponymous X's novels is described as "a novel that emulsified fact and fiction"--the same can be said of Biography of X. It's a slippery novel in the way that it straddles fact and fiction, deeply commits itself to both the "real" and the constructed. That it is billed to us as a biography, and not a novel, immediately speaks to the kind of standards that it is attaching to itself, and that it in turn attempts to live up to. As a work of nonfiction ostensibly written by C. M. Lucca, X's widow, Biography of X commits to the research that such a work entails: at the end of each of its chapters, the reader is presented with a list of sources that include--sometimes fictional, sometimes real, sometimes a bit of both--novels, articles, recordings, interviews, movies, archival materials, all listed along with their authors, dates, publishers, locations. That the novel does this seems to imply a kind of rigorous commitment to the work on the part of C. M. Lucca: this feeling that she is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to the integrity of this biography of her wife that she's trying to write. And yet, in many ways, Lucca is not a very good biographer, or not really a "biographer" at all: she is too close to her subject, her stake in this work too personal. Lucca's biography, then, like Lacey's novel, both is and is not a biography: it is the account of the life of a deceased artist, and it is the account of the grief of the widow that artist left behind; it is rigorous enough to attempt to commit to the standards of its genre, and personal enough to cast doubt on its supposed adherence to those standards. In other words, it "emulsifies fact and fiction," mixes the factual details of X's life, supported by meticulous references, with the narrative that Lucca, as someone who loved X, wants to believe about X, or used to believe about X, or is trying to uncover from X.

So far, I've talked about C. M. Lucca, the fictional author in this book, more than I have about Catherine Lacey, the actual author of the book. But Biography of X, the novel, and the biography of X, the biography, are not so easy to separate. Like a mobius strip, they feed into each other, the one looping into the other such that it becomes impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. Put another way, Biography of X is a deeply metafictional novel in the way that it is constantly metabolizing itself, at once calling attention to and calling into question its own narrative, its author and her subject, its methodology.

One of the things I loved most about this novel is the way that it slowly unravelled--and, by extension, complicated--the relationship between Lucca and X. The novel, we are told, is the story of a widow who, in the wake of her grief, decides to write a biography about her deceased wife, who was quite a famous and prolific artist. It's the kind of premise that almost immediately implies a certain kind of story, one which boils down to: grieving widow finds out who her wife "really was." But the novel is not really interested in anything as facile as that; it's not interested in who X "really was" so much as it is interested in who X is made out to be, especially by Lucca. What it asks is, how do we construct accounts for people--and for ourselves--when they seem to elide being accountable in the first place? (In that respect, this novel really reminded me of Trust by Hernan Diaz and the way it also delves into the many accounts of an almost larger-than-life person.) X is undoubtedly a complex and elusive figure--becoming less rather than more understandable as the novel goes on (and I mean that in the best way)--but for me the more compelling figure in this novel is easily Lucca, X's ostensible biographer. As much as it is presented as a biography of X, I found Biography of X to be such a sensitive and moving portrait of Lucca: of what it is like to be so deeply (and dangerously) caught up in a romantic relationship, to so intimately and vulnerably tie your sense of self to another person. For all its deft thematic explorations, Biography of X is also just about this grief that has overtaken its narrator, this persistent sense of loss that she cannot shake off, and that she is unable to resolve.

(One final note: Catherine Lacey's writing in this novel is just stunning. I have pages and pages of highlights; when it came to looking for some quotes to put in this review, there was an absolute embarrassment of riches for me to choose from.)

Biography of X is such a fascinating, engrossing, impressive novel, complex and challenging and resistant to any kind of simple answers--in other words, just the kind of love that I love, and that I did love, a lot.

Thank you to Recorded Books for providing me with an audiobook copy of this via NetGalley!

Thank you Netgalley for this audio edition of Biography of X by Catherine Lacey.

Unfortunately this is a DNF for me. It just started to feel a bit too much like sitting in a washing machine on agitate for too long. Just swishing back and forth, but never getting anywhere. The story just wasn't doing enough to keep me interested.

This book relies upon the mystery and appeal of X. Unfortunately, I just didn't find her that compelling. The narrator's helpless response to X's inexplicable allure reminded me of Story of O, in that I couldn't understand why the narrator would put up with any of it.

I wanted to give up on this book several times as I listened and by the end, I was so mad at myself for not listening to my gut. In the end, I still have no idea what I listened to for so many hours or why? If I could give it less than one star I would. The characters were extremely unlikable and the story very difficult to follow. I hated it.

Recorded books, netgalley (thank you for an advance copy)
…..read by Cassandra Campbell
….14 hours and 6 minutes

Have you ever wanted to spit somebody in the face?
And or tell them to fuck off, and never contact you again?
CM did…..
CM wanted to spit into Mr. Smith’s face ….(the guy who wrote a biography about her deceased wife) and tell him to F off. (CM didn’t because she’s a nice proper woman).
But….
I’m getting ahead of myself here….

What I need to say — and others might want to know …. this is a remarkable piece of writing — strange — mysterious engrossing —
sometimes pathetic—other times darn messed-up hilarious.
There is nothing generic about this book.
It may not be for everyone….but I was totally captivated > and Casandra Campbell was perfect to read it.

CM left her husband to marry X.
Never mind
….that CM didn’t know where X was born….
Never mind
….that CM ‘knew’ that X would be the center of her life and the mystery of her life.
Never mind
….that “X Lived in a play without an intermission, and where she casted herself in every role.
Never mind
….that X chose to live a life where nothing was fixed. She might change her name from day to day.
Never mind
….that X thought she was a person who could manipulate others and that CM would allow herself to be manipulated.
Never mind
….that CM had to ‘promise’ she wouldn’t tell anyone - would never report — when X disappeared. Sometimes for weeks. And CM was never to question where she had been when she returned. (Disappearing had been a problem in other relationships for X)….

Interlude >> let me repeat I found this book deliciously messed-up humorous.

Never mind
….CM never intended to write a corrected biography… she says “if that’s what you call it”.
But she does….and this is the book we get.

NEVER MIND
….the strangeness, CM and X’s relationship….
“The Biography of X” is a whimsical, fresh, and thrilling ride for anyone who’s willing to take it.

CM set out to uncover as much information she could learn about X. The detail that bothered CM the most …..was not knowing where she was born.

…excerpt:
“What about those times when you call out to your wife telling them lunch is ready? And they don’t come? So you walk further down the hallway and into the room and call out their name again— only to find them lying on the floor, like a pile of laundry…..
“What I want to say, is, when I went to look for her, and did not find her, when she died, that is, or after, when I looked at the body left behind, I knew exactly what happened”.

Note: Catherine Lacey wrote Pew…..another book that equally intrigued me. I guess I’m an official Lacey fan now!

I really thought I would enjoy this one. The description was intriguing. The narrator was a great fit for the story and I enjoyed the sample a lot. The language is evocative and utilized to maximum effect. But the characters are not very likeable, the plot plods along, and the whole thing felt drawn out and unnecessarily confusing... Like a number of other reviewers, I took issue with the alternative history layered on top of the story - it made for a jumble of elements that I kept getting tripped up by as I tried to follow the unfolding of the life of X and her wife. I wasn't familiar with Catherine Lacey or her style prior to this novel. A little investigation leads me to think her conceptual and non-traditional narrative style is simply not a great fit for me. While I appreciate the artistry behind it, it generally doesn't resonate with me on a storytelling level the way more traditional narrative styles do. That's where I struggled with this one...

This isn't a bad book... it's a good story, well written. It's an alternate history of the 20th century using an interesting character as the way in. I liked/hated X in the ways I was intended to. So it definitely isn't a BAD book. But it IS annoying. The main crime is the footnotes. The ENDLESS FOOTNOTES. In the digital version it's easy enough to ignore them, but the audiobook pauses at least once per page to cite a fictional source. The footnotes take up a full 7% of the ebook. While they do help establish the reality of the book - that this is a biography of a real person - it could easily have cut 2/3 of the repetitive references.

The other annoyance is maybe personal, but I was hugely, HUGELY annoyed by a segment of the novel that gave X credit for writing a few of Bowie's songs. It's one thing to use real people to make the world feel familiar. But to say she wrote his lyrics... and to give her FULL CREDIT for writing "Heroes" (and changing the real-world meaning of the song, and it's impact on the Berlin Wall) was almost enough to make me stop reading. I don't know why but it felt offensive to me. Not quite Back to the Future turning Chuck Berry into a plagiarist, but in the same wheelhouse.

So I enjoyed the story. I thought the writing was extremely good. But I can't quite give it full marks.

First, I am so thankful to Catherine Lacey, FSG Books, and RB Media for granting me advanced access to this wonderfully mystifying novel about our MC, CM, who goes on a journey into learning who her deceased wife was to a slew of people. X, the deceased spouse in question, happens to have accrued a magnitude of fans and followers throughout her lifetime, after writing world’s worth of fiction and fantasy, that CM is now working to weed through the reality of their nature.