Biography of X

A Novel

By: Catherine Lacey

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

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

When X—an iconoclastic artist and shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow CM, wild with grief, hurls herself into writing X's biography. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. In CM's quest to unravel it, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets 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.

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X's widow, 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. And 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, 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.

©2023 Catherine Lacey (P)2023 Recorded Books

Creative Unique Novel

This book was unlike anything I have read recently. Give it a try, you may love it.

Didn't live up to the hype.

I didn't find the story compelling or even very interesting. Maybe if I had the book w/ the multi-media interaction it would have had more depth to it but without that the story just fell flat.

Interesting story, irritating narration

If you are down for a story with no likeable characters, you’ll enjoy this. The world building and mystery are excellent. The way things unfold is very compelling.

However, the narrator takes an audible breath before 3 out of 5 lines. For me, it became all I could focus on, like hiccups. She also had a very affected way of speaking, putting pauses in the middle of words like saying the title character’s name “ek, s”

Story, good. Narration, boo.

awful and tedious

A vapid book with selfish, utterly joyless characters. Endless footnotes which, when read in an audiobook, distract and add no value. Kept hoping it would get better but it was tedious from start to finish.

Innovative storytelling and excellent narration

This was absolutely mesmerizing from beginning to end. The play between fiction and nonfiction was brilliantly done, and I hope to see Lacey continue to explore this type of narrative structure in the future. It’s only February, but I suspect this will be one of my top books of the year.

Different in a good way

I’m not really sure what to think or say about it, but it’s worth a read.

Excellent Book

Can’t recommend enough. Such a great story. Loved it. Such incredible character development. Great all around

Worst book I’ve ever read

The reader sounds like Moira Rose ate Jenna Maroney. The protagonist casually romanticizes blatantly abusive behavior. The subject is a malignant narcissist with the rhetorical skills of a 10th grader. The world-building is inconsistent, shallow, and simplistic. The author ascribes some of the stupidest sentences ever committed to print to people like Susan Sontag, David Bowie, and staff writers for Rolling Stone as if that will mislead the reader into finding them deep. It’s clear that the book was built sentence-by-sentence because taken individually, some of Lacey’s thoughts are interesting, but taken on the whole, none of it makes any sense. She likes to end quotes and sections with meaningless enigmatic phrases that probably sounded very cool in her head.

Unique Perspective of getting to know your spouse

It was a sometimes monotonous in details of notes and letters but they brought together a story of great depth, intelligence and compassion.

Couldn’t stop listening

Really enjoyed listening to this story. Still digesting the ending - leaves you wanting more, but I think that’s the point?