"When X - an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter - falls dead in her office, her widow, 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, 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." -- Publisher annotation.
Catherine Lacey Books
Catherine Lacey crafts novels that delve into the intricate webs of human relationships and probe existential questions. Her prose is sharp and insightful, offering a profound exploration of the human psyche. Lacey excels at capturing subtle emotional nuances, providing readers with a memorable literary experience. Her works frequently grapple with themes of identity, desire, and the search for meaning in contemporary life.






Certain American States
- 208 pages
- 8 hours of reading
Twelve stories - each a masterful and compassionate guide to the fluctuations of the human heart - from one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists.
An eerie modern tale for fans of Shirley Jackson and Sarah Hall from a young American writer hailed as one of the finest of her generation.
This dazzling, dark novel follows a young woman called Elyria as she hitchhikes across the wilds of New Zealand, fleeing from her marriage and her sorrows, searching for what's missing.
A dating dystopia for our modern age, from one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists.
The Art of the Affair
- 87 pages
- 4 hours of reading
Novelist Catherine Lacey and the illustrator Forsyth Harmon team up to draw (literal) lines between artists' marriages, flings, rivalries and assorted other connections. Some couplings in the survey are better known than others; some were more fully consummated than others. Wending its way through Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, Anaïs Nin and Gore Vidal, the book ends with Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, who, Lacey writes, 'seemed to have had the sort of relationship we should all aspire to.' New York Times Book Review