OMG, Catherine Lacey wrote a whole ass high concept memoir about how her ex Jesse Ball is a gaslighting, over-confident toxic boi who broke up with her via e-mail from the next room and made her require an actual exorcism in which a demon was extracted from her leg (yes: WTF). I am shooketh - put the kettle on, the literary tea is piping hot, and I'm unsure who looks the worst in this oeuvre (it's probably Jesse Ball though). Is this a hit piece that rather melodramatically vents grievances to a degree that puts the author at least partially in the wrong? Yes. Will the whole thing become a bona fide shit show for Ball once it's officially published and the internet will be eating this up? Oooooh yes. Does this text display interesting literary ideas in a daring form? Also yes, because Catherine Lacey is an amazing artist.

The first around 40 percent of this experimental memoir is a fictional story about two female friends, one of them divorcing her wife after having an affair - the whole drama is presented via conversations and in the style of a chamber play that illuminates how the situation extends to a web of friendships that goes back to college. While the two women at the center drink and mourn, they tell themselves that the blood seeping out under the door of the apartment next to them is probably something else... So all in all typical Lacey stuff, psychological writing that showcases human consciousness via specific ideas and atmospheres, a text that feels like a lucid dream, all that rightfully made the author famous - but I was frankly puzzled because.. isn't this supposed to be a memoir? Psych! "There's nothing wrong with inventing a story to explain something real to yourself", one character declares. The story ends, a new one begins as Book B.

And very close to the beginning of this non-fictional part, Lacey, the narrator, gives us the explanation: "(n)early every time I've written a novel something happens in between its completion and its publication that makes it clear to me that I knew something I didn't know I knew while I was writing, and that buried knowledge, that unknown known, had been expressed in the fiction, just beyond my awareness." There's the author's explanation for the intricate connection between crafting fiction and processing one's life, and in this publication, we get both the fiction and the non-fiction part: The Möbius Book, doh! There will be plenty of papers trying to extract how Book A and Book B are interwoven, but this review won't be one of them.

Because I know you want to get back to the tea, so here we go. Two things first: I am a huge fan of Jesse Ball's (and Lacey's!) writing, but clearly, I don't know them as people. Then, yes, Ball's name is never mentioned in the book, but there are so many clues that it's impossible to miss: The time frames, him (at the time) being a writer and professor in Chicago with a cult following, his deceased brother Abram (for whom Ball wrote Census), even a whole passage from Autoportrait is quoted in here etc pp. Now Lacey/ the narrator of the memoir (let's not get into the autofiction debate) tells us that she divorced her husband for him, and six years later, he left her for another woman, telling Lacey that she doesn't love him anymore, as has been his habit: Telling Lacey who she (supposedly) is.

And then there's a whole catalogue of shit he is accused of: Gaslighting, manipulation, verbal abuse, body shaming, a violent temper, anger-induced self-harm, an ex accusing him of hitting her (which btw amounts to spreading rumours), the list goes on. Throughout, Lacey is referring to Ball as "The Reason", which is played in different contexts, but also directly points to the main shortcoming of this book (which is itself filled with rage and grief): Jesse Ball clearly isn't The Reason for everything, reasoning himself out every situation while being the root of all misery. Where is Lacey's agency? She's a whip smart feminist, what happened here? That would have been a question worthy of exploring in a lot more detail, but we mainly get her crying in various places and under various circumstances. Also, hasn't she been terrible to her ex-husband when she dumped him for Ball? Where is the major difference to what Ball did to her in the end? Listen, I'm not judging or making excuses for Ball (a man I, as mentioned above, don't know at all), I'm just longing for more complexity on the content level, a complexity that is certainly there on the aesthetic level.

An then there's the religious component, or rather, the aspect of faith: Lacey talks about her religious upbringing in Mississippi, and how love also requires faith in the unknowable, and that's all good and well (I'm a Catholic, I get it), but when she went on to Mexican healers and exorcisms, she lost me. Not sure the way to get over a toxic ex is excessive public crying and magic, sorry. What I do understand is that Lacey is seeking an emotional end to the turmoil: "It was hard (...) to find satisfying conclusions to stories that weren't exactly stories but rather a set of prompts that resisted completion, a Möbius strip of narrative". That's life folks, and sometimes, it sucks.

So while I enjoyed reading the book, I also partly felt like I was nosing through the high concept version of literary gossip - a feeling I didn't have at all when reading, let's say, In the Dream House, which feels a lot less like revenge, and more like soul searching and an attempt to process what happened and why. This book will certainly cause quite some controversy.

I am a fan of Catherine Lacey's work and also really enjoyed this book. It is a genre-defying text, with many swerves and surprises. It could be interesting to teach in a class on hybrid texts or creative non-fiction.

this book defies expectations.

huge blessings to everyone who will read it and think about all that ever was or will be in the never ending cycle of life.

tysm netgalley what a treat.

Catherine Lacey is a fascinating writer. This book is written in two halves but both are about the same thing, the end of a relationship. Lacey describes the nuances and complexities of the relationship and how she lost her sense of self. Much of the book is about her friends who helped her in the aftermath of the breakup. Her style, insight, and voice carry this book. I connected more to the first person account than the third but both were compelling and beautifully written.

I adored every second I spent with The Mobius Book. I’ve been a Lacey fan since reading Pew a few years ago, and this book did not disappoint. Somehow, Lacey has grown even more talented as she explores themes from her other works and illustrates how complicated and cyclical life can be.

This book plays with genre, style, and narrative in ways that feel completely exciting. At its heart, this is a story broken into two halves about what it means to lose your faith, lose your partner, and lose the life you’ve built for yourself. I think it’s best to go into this one blindly so that the midpoint of the book hits as hard as possible.

All this to say, I highly recommend.

“‘There is no story that does not lead to another story,’ Edie thinks, or maybe it was the dead dog speaking again.
‘Which makes you wonder, then, what all these stories are for?’ Edie doesn’t quite whisper to the empty room.”

Thank you to NetGalley, FSG, and Catherine Lacey for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I love Lacey and I love this book. Heck. So many feels in this one, it felt so real and just completely resonated with me. Really appreciated the playfulness of form too. Book A would be cool published as a perfect standalone in a review magazine. This book made me even more of a Lacey fan. Bravo, honestly!

Thank you for the ARC! This is the first Catherine Lacey book I have read and I really enjoyed it - both Edie and Marie's story and the authors mobius story. Although I'll admit I had difficulty putting them together and thought both were better off as stand alone pieces.

Lacey was able to illustrate a life well loved and lived, full of mistakes and strong, unromantic relationships. I want to seek out more of her writing.

The Möbius Book is Catherine Lacey’s sixth book and a blending of both fiction and nonfiction. The execution is well done, the format is innovative and compelling, and I was pulled along reading past my bedtime trying to understand how to folded and tied together. Very much a book about the interior lives of women, the whole thing had me in mind of Sheila Heti’s writing—whose work I find to be hit or miss. Certainly if it had been much longer it would not have kept my interest for a significant amount of time. There’s no denying the talent of Lacey—I’m just not sure I am the correct audience for this precise book. Nevertheless, I adored her debut Nobody Is Ever Missing and I continue to look forward to more writing from Catherine Lacey.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Catherine Lacey for access to an ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. After a six year relationship, the parter of the author says he’s leaving her because she has obviously fallen out of love with him. Is this true? This loss sends her into a spiral of trying to move on, but finds herself wandering the streets of New York never far from openly weeping. It also causes her to stop eating, which brings her back to her youth and history of food struggles, which also brings her back to her strong religious beliefs when a child. The book seems, among many questions, to be about can you replace religion with work, art and lifelong friends.