title: Biography of X by: Lacey, Catherine published: 2023-03-21 read: 2023-06 preview

Not the normalest of books. This biography isn’t, as there was no X. And yet, it’s a biography written by X’ wife. X herself was an artist, fleeing from the dystopian Southern Territory to a liberal North and starting her life there. If you saw Zelig, you may find parallels; or at least I did. And like it for similar reasons. Oh and if you did not see Zelig, you should.

X, a famous or infamous author, sculptor, director, visual artist, and so on, with no-one knowing her, probably including her (second, I think) wife, CM Lucca. And this book is really coming to terms with her, with the things she knew not about X, and often things she did not want to know.

Some of the people in the book are real, indeed. Many are invented, and knowing who is whom is not easy. But not important, too. The book is indeed also about the Southern Territory vs. the Northern. Take today US politics to the extreme, and it’s a smooth, and distressing, result. Do the same in many European countries, and you’ll get there just as easily. (The book has a happy end there, which the world doesn’t.)

So the book is really about CM Lucca, how she discovers X’ life, and therefore the truths and lies she encountered in her past. The other lives that X had shock her, sometimes console her. Observing herself through the looking glass, through X.

I did not get much of a take-home message from the book. But I had a lot of fun, or satisfaction if you want, reading it. What else do you want?