Description

The Book of X tells the tale of Cassie, a girl born with her stomach twisted in the shape of a knot. From childhood with her parents on the family meat farm, to a desk job in the city, to finally experiencing love, she grapples with her body, men, and society, all the while imagining a softer world than the one she is in.

Twining the drama of the everyday – school-age crushes, paying bills, the sickness of parents – with the surreal – rivers of thighs, men for sale, and fields of throats – Cassie’s realities alternate to create a blurred, fantastic world of haunting beauty.

Publisher Review

I loved every page of this gorgeous, grotesque, heartbreaking novel — Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties The Book of X traverses the mundane and the surreal – from grocery lists to blooming meat, menstrual blood to a jealousy removal shop – laying bare the absurdities of womanhood. A truly original writer, Etter continues to push the boundaries of her imagination… and ours — Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley Utterly unique and remarkable… Sarah Rose Etter takes the surreal and expertly shapes it into a portrait that is as beautiful and compelling as it is horrifying and unbearable… Etter brilliantly, viciously lays bare what it means to be a woman in the world, what it means to hurt, to need, to want, so much it consumes everything — Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist There are very few good reasons to use the word oneiric in a sentence and here is one of them: It’s one of the few English adjectives appropriate to Sarah Rose Etter’s novel about a woman born with a stomach disfigurement who navigates the world (as we all do) with the trepidation and fury and occasional exultation that results from having a disappointing body * Vulture (Best Books of 2019) * Dizzying and grotesque… Etter has built an eerie, surreal world… and she seduces you into it with dreamy lyricism. You won’t want to leave * Buzzfeed (Best Books of 2019) *