ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I am a graduating literature student, and I plan on studying acting next year. If I’m not tap dancing, playing piano or running, you’ll find me banging my head against a wall trying to find the perfect word to use in my essay or novel. Written in my class called The Novel, this essay is heavily inspired by my Literary Theory and Criticism course, which introduced me to the convoluted wonders of poststructuralism and beyond.

–Maura Tepperman

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The idea of gender as a construct gets thrown around a lot these days, but what does that statement fundamentally imply about identity in general? Catherine Lacey’s novel, Biography of X, exposes the flaws of identity and constructs as a whole by exploring poststructuralist topics. Poststructuralism, an intellectual and philosophical movement of the 1960s and 1970s, exposes the instability of structures (i.e. language, categories, society, etc.). It critiques the assumption that an author has control over a text’s consistent meaning (or that of any form of communication). Instead, poststructuralism affirms that meaning is always deferred. In other words, meaning is fluid, as context (e.g. time, people, connotations) influences interpretation, and always pushes it just out of reach. Additionally, humans organize themselves into categories that feel safe and stable, like ‘woman,’ ‘student,’ ‘good,’ or bad,’ but since meaning is deferred, these labels are unstable. People chase these illusions of consistency, therefore collectively reinforcing and developing these categories. Since meaning is slippery, poststructuralism examines how a text[1] conveys both a main idea and its opposite–the ‘both/and’ concept. Some poststructuralists use (im)perfect puns to communicate this double meaning. In Biography of X, Catherine Lacey creates a dystopian American history where, in 1945, the South secedes from the nation to form the theocratic, totalitarian Southern Territory (ST). The United States only reunite in 1996. Lacey explores this world and the concept of identity through Lucca, a journalist who writes a biography in order to uncover more about her deceased wife’s secret history. Her wife, X, spent her life shapeshifting into different personalities in order to create art and escape her childhood in the ST. Through a mixing of genres and X’s characterization, Lacey’s Biography of X develops identity as an unstable construct that is (un)natural, a development that is reminiscent of poststructuralist ideas. 

Lacey blends genres in Biography of X to develop poststructuralism’s concept of identity as a constantly deferred construct. The novel masquerades as a biography, as Lucca explains that, because Theodore Smith has published a “false narrative” of X, she wants to “avenge him and his lies” (Lacey 19). In a way, Lucca does accomplish her goal as she recounts X’s complex history more accurately. However, Biography of X remains a novel–not a biography–as certain parts of X’s story are withheld to create a suspenseful narrative: details of X’s abuse towards Lucca, for example, only start to pile up in the last hundred pages. Lucca, just like Smith, inevitably fails to convey an impartial truth. Unlike a real biography that pretends to share objective facts, writing a novel allows Lacey to illustrate how, ultimately, truth is unattainable. By using both biographical and novelistic techniques, Lacey destabilizes the concept of a whole, self-contained genre–as genre is simply a book’s identity. Biography of X is also an alternate history novel where various real-world artists appear as fictionalized versions of themselves. Musician Connie Converse, who disappeared in real life in 1974, dies in 1981 in the book (267). Lacey transforms Connie’s career and life, showing how people are shaped by the world around them. As history is altered, so are the people. As Lacey depicts identity as being constructed by context, she deconstructs the notion that the self is an independent being born one way. Rather, the fluid self is constantly influenced by outside factors, making it unstable and deferred. Biography of X is also a detective story, as Lucca sifts through clues to better understand her wife, finally arriving at X’s last unfinished exhibition. In one room, Lucca watches a fictional film of her and X arguing as their relationship falls apart, and Lucca concludes, “I do not know anything of that woman” (348). By recounting X’s past, Lacey has brought her back to life for a few hundred pages. However, the reader finally faces X’s death as Lucca realizes that the more clues she unveils, the less she knows about her own wife. X remains an unsolvable mystery because she is dead. Her absence is a metaphor for the impossibility of finding a complete, objective truth; it is literally gone and inaccessible. Unlike a traditional mystery novel, Lacey’s twist at the end does not explain everything; it furthers identity as a slippery simulation that is always just out of reach. As Biography of X defies categorization, Lacey illustrates poststrucutralism’s concept of identity as being deferred.

Through characterization of X, Lacey’s Biography of X displays identity as an unstable, (un)natural construct. X is a complicated enigma to solve; one of her favourite quotes from Ru Paul establishes her view on life: “You’re born naked and the rest is drag” (39). X embodies countless pseudonyms throughout her life (e.g. Dorothy Eagle, Bee Converse the music producer, Martina Riggio the Italian feminist activist, Věra the artist, etc.). She wears these characters as if they are her true identity in order to navigate life, much like a drag performer. Ru Paul’s quote demonstrates how everything people do and are is a construct–a performance. People adapt to situations by showing a different side of themselves or by fitting into comfortable, predetermined, and unstable categories. X’s performances are as little and as much an act as anyone else’s day to day. By changing names, X only admits that the human subject is a constantly deferred multiplicity of beings. Meanwhile, in a diary entry from 1981, X explains that she keeps her past a secret because, “The circumstances of someone’s birth should have no bearing on their life” (39). X pushes the poststructuralist argument of unstable identity one step further: if people cannot be neatly defined, they should stop trying to characterize each other with something as unreachable and flimsy as the past. This comment can be taken at face value, as labelling someone purely by their history can be quite reductionist. However, in line with poststructuralism’s ‘both/and’ thinking, her words might also be indicative of someone who is trying to escape a traumatic past that still controls them. After escaping the ST’s patriarchal dictatorship, X winds up convincing Lucca to quit the job she enjoys, and Lucca describes herself becoming “X’s wife…in the most archaic sense of the word” by cooking, shopping, cleaning, handling appointments, and doing whatever X says (314). X, although she revolted against the ST’s misogyny, re-establishes those patriarchal norms that were ingrained in her from birth in her own household. Despite claiming that people are not and should not be categorized by their past, X clearly defines her own life around these supposedly long lost parameters. This phenomenon reinforces the self as dependent on history and context. Thus, categories are both impossible to define and very defined by the past. Despite these constructs (such as ‘woman’ or ‘housewife’) being unstable and made up, the fact that someone as anti-label as X still clings to them reveals how essential they are to humanity. X’s final art installation establishes the entirety of X and Lucca’s relationship, with one artwork composed of graphs titled, “Her Progress, each of which [measures] some abstract quality over time–Intellectual Capacity, Aesthetic Intelligence, Depth of Love, Rhetorical Strength” (345). X, who has spent her life escaping labels–even naming herself X so she can be everything and nothing at once– breaks her commitment to fluidity. In this ultimate betrayal of love and trust, she rates her wife’s abstract qualities with quantifiable numbers. Despite seeming almost inhuman at times, X is inevitably very human. Typical to poststructuralist theory, X both acknowledges the unnaturalness of constructs, yet finds herself naturally drawn to them anyway. While these labels immensely influence people’s actions, they are often simply a flawed byproduct of humanity naturally existing and navigating life. In Biography of X, Lacey’s characterization of X illustrates the poststructural contradiction of human constructs being one of the most natural things of all.

In Biography of X, Lacey blends genres and uses X’s characterization to display identity as both a fluid, unnatural construct, and something very natural to humans. Poststructuralism seeks to deconstruct all assumptions and never arrive at a final conclusion. Ironically, this essay offers a conclusive thesis on identity, which both aligns with poststructuralist ideas, and betrays its very essence by pretending to understand the author’s singular meaning. However, in rigid academic contexts, there is often little space to stray from the predetermined label of what constitutes as appropriate. The academic world offers countless contradictions to deconstruct, as it seeks to change the world while staying within the safe confines of its own made-up category.

[1] “In the context of poststructuralism, reading a text includes reading society and culture as a text.”

 

Works Cited

Burgoyne, Sarah. “Poststructuralism (1).” October 8, 2024, Literary Theory and Criticism, English Department, Dawson College, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Burgoyne, Sarah. “Poststructuralism (2) Deconstruction.” October 15, 2024, Literary Theory and Criticism, English Department, Dawson College, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Burgoyne, Sarah. “Poststructuralism (3).” October 30, 2024, Literary Theory and Criticism, English Department, Dawson College, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Lacey, Catherine. Biography of X : A Novel / Catherine Lacey. Picador, 2023. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=e87af69d-a549-34e8-99b2-9911b87cbc1f. 

Wikipedia contributors. “Connie Converse.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Sep. 2024. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024