Publisher's Synopsis
GANADORA DEL PREMIO BROOKLYN LIBRARY, FINALISTA DEL DYLAN THOMAS Y EL PEN/FAULKNER, MEJOR LIBRO DEL AÑO SEGÚN LA REVISTA TIME Y UNO DE LOS MEJORES DEL AÑO SEGÚN THE NEW YORK TIMES, NEW YORKER O VANITY FAIR.
&«Brillante, asombrosa». -Chris Kraus
&«Aunque puede que no cambie el mundo, cambiará al lector». -The Guardian
&«Una novela fundamental y enormemente audaz». -The New York Times
Cuando X -artista iconoclasta, escritora y hechicera de las apariencias-- cae muerta en su oficina, su mujer, CM, enloquecida por el dolor y rechazando los consejos de su entorno, se lanza a escribir una biografìa de la mujer a la que endiosó, pero de la que ignora incluso dónde nació. Reconocida como una fuerza creativa crucial de su época, X mantuvo un férreo control sobre la historia de su vida. En su afán por averiguar ese misterioso pasado, su viuda se sumergirá en la historia del Territorio del Sur, teocracia fascista que se separó del resto de Estados Unidos tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial y que en la actualidad se ve obligada a una difìcil reunificación. A medida que CM va comprendiendo el alcance artìstico de la mujer a la que amó, abrirá una caja de Pandora de secretos, traiciones y destrucción.
Llena de suspense e inteligencia, Biografìa de X se adentra en las profundidades del dolor, el arte y el amor. En su novela más ambiciosa, Lacey se consolida como &«una de las novelistas más intrépidas del momento» (Los Angeles Times) y lleva su arte al más alto nivel con la creación de un personaje inolvidable que muestra en su absorbente misterio las grietas de las historias que fabricamos sobre nosotros mismos.
&«Es bastante raro que una novela sea enormemente inteligente, conmovedora y divertida a partes iguales, pero con Biografìa de X, Catherine Lacey consigue de algún modo -como por arte de magia- que lo casi imposible parezca fácil». Lauren Groff
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2023 by Time (#1), Vulture, and Publishers Weekly, and one of the Best Books of 2023 by The New York Times, the New Yorker, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire, the Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, Lit Hub, and Amazon.
National Bestseller. Winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the 2023 Brooklyn Library Prize, a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.
"A major novel, and a notably audacious one." ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times
From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.
When X―an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter―falls dead in her office, her widow, CM, 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 knows where X was 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, and which finally, in the present day, is being forced into an uneasy reunification.
A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X's widow, Biography of X follows 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. At last, 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 while blending nonfiction and fiction, 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.
