'Brilliant, astonishing' Chris Kraus 'Sly, brilliant, philosophically acute, bitingly funny, and a pure joy to spend hours with' Lauren Groff

When X - the iconoclastic artist, musician and writer - dies suddenly, CM, her widow, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. The story will lead her deep into the Southern Territory - a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the USA after World War II - before revealing the full weight of X's secrets, and the depth of her betrayal.

'A thriller set against a backdrop of political intrigue, an elegy, an art world satire and a thought experiment too... One of the most interesting books you'll read this year...' Financial Times 'A profound novel about love and what it can license, about the toll - and maybe the con - of genius' Garth Greenwell 'Sprawling and ambitious... Strange and dystopian... This is a major novel' New York Times