Lacey isn’t scorching earth—she’s sifting it, flinging fistfuls of dirt and thought at us . . . mundane language pops out with new meaning in the fog of post-relationship grief . . . Lacey is imaginative and whimsical when considering reality, and sees truth in make-believe." —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times
"Visceral, slippery . . . a brilliant exploration of faith (religious and otherwise), love of all kinds, sensuality and sexuality, eating disorders, experiencing the unknown, and the endless fluidity of being a human." —Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair
"Lacey is always doing something mysterious with form . . . Her latest novel is split down the middle, making it impossible to decide which half to begin with. Blending truth and fiction, the reader is in good hands no matter Lacey’s subject." —Jessica Ferri, Los Angeles Times
"Memoir collides with invention in a brilliant interrogation of art, faith and relationships . . . The Möbius Book is deeply serious and engrossingly playful, and it lavishly rewards serious, playful attention." —Sarah Moss, The Guardian
"Both sections play with form, both are filled with philosophical reflections, both resist linear narrative as they explore our messy desires, compulsions and repetitions. This is a looping Möbius strip of an inquiry, unyielding to easy resolution . . . filled with clever ideas and bears multiple rereadings, as does the whole.Thematically, this is apt. For “there is no story that does not lead to another story,” as Ms. Lacey writes. And yet, for all its delightful circularity, “The Möbius Book” does approach a terminus of sorts. From the ashes of the author’s heartbreak, the green shoots of a happy ending might even be discerned. For now." —Toby Lichtig, The Wall Street Journal
"Catherine Lacey continues to probe and puncture the membrane between what is real and what is imagined . . . curious and unique." —Jasmine Vojdani, Vulture
"The Möbius Book does not reject the idea of fiction so much as demonstrate how fiction and nonfiction are in constant dialogue, how each is never entirely what it says it is . . . equally a moving documentary of personal loss, a meditation on the fragility of identity and a critique of the struggle women still face in being heard." —Nina Allan, Times Literary Supplement (London)
"As enticing and frustrating as its eponymous strip . . . exhilarating in its meticulous construction and literary flamboyance." —Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe
"This constant return to the scene of writing—this demand that we grasp the text not just as a written thing (this being the demand of classical postmodernism, with its delight in self-reflexive textual play) but also as a writing, as the product of a writer struggling with her material, encoding that struggle into the text itself, and producing some unaccountable hybridity in excess of the 'real'—is Lacey’s great breakthrough." —Jon Repetti, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Every book Lacey writes is uniquely strange, but all of them investigate the slipperiness of storytelling . . . a project that makes you think deeply about how we construct stories to make sense of our lives. The goal is always to search rather than to settle." —Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times (UK)
"Catherine Lacey has been climbing up the literary ladder ever since her magnificent debut novel . . . this new one runs the emotional gamut." ―The Telegraph (London)
"The Möbius Book has no beginning or end but stresses the cycles that punctuate our lives, musing on memory and fiction and the centrality that faith—whatever form that may take—can have. With a heavy emotional thrust and a singular style, this book might resist easy definitions or categories but asks gnawing universal questions on intimacy, security and belief systems that are sure to enthrall many." —Nathan Smith, Observer (London)
"Is it a memoir or a novel or a little of both? Better to categorize Lacey’s latest as its own genre, a category-defining, creative, thought-provoking piece of literature on loss, betrayal, friendships, faith, and more . . .Unlike life, there is no beginning or end, just a story that follows its own strange, wild, and mesmerizing pattern. A sui generis work, like no other." —Booklist (starred review)
"A genre-bending book that grapples with the diffuse and uncategorizable enormity of personal loss . . . There are no easy endings in this doubled book, just an infinity loop of questions and possibilities, a twinned bank of pay phones ringing in the night, waiting for someone to answer . . . A literary haunting that will burrow under your skin." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[The Mobius Book] expands the craft explored in [Biography of X] but offers a nakedness of spirit that few artists have explored as deftly as she does.” —Library Journal (starred review)
"Novelist Lacey (Biography of X) reflects on love, faith, and loss in this ambitious genre-bender . . . her vulnerable search for answers and insertion of rhyming resonances across the two narratives excite. The author’s fans will be glad they took the plunge." ―Publishers Weekly
"A hybrid work of fiction and nonfiction, a genre-bending work that traces her relationship with her ex partner and with her former religious faith. Lacey’s work always surprises me and offers something totally new . . . sure to be striking and singular." ―LitHub
"Part novel, part memoir, what might have become a mere separation narrative in another’s hands instead interrogates through its own form whether anything begins or ends in the first place." —John H. Maher, The Millions
"As a massive fan of Lacey’s ambitious alternate-history novel Biography of X, I couldn’t be more thrilled that she’s following it up with something similarly audacious: a half-fictional, half-memoiristic meditation on her own breakup. Leave it to Lacey to put a tantalizing asterisk on her first foray into autobiography. —Conner Reed, Publishers Weekly
"A singular, bewitching work about cycles of life and loss, the patterns of behavior that seem to lock us into who we are, and the quest for a faith that might break us free." —Hua Hsu, author of Stay True
"Catherine Lacey's The Möbius Book is a brilliantly innovative memoir-cum-novel that unsettles and enthralls. When a relationship abruptly shatters, Lacey is left grappling with profound questions about intimacy, safety, and meaning. How well can we ever truly know another person? Can we ever fully know ourselves? As Lacey navigates a winding path of loss and self-discovery, she meditates on spirituality, the illusion of safety, the nature of art, and the transformative power of rupture; the result is a meditation of startling immediacy and depth." ―Meghan O'Rourke, author of The Invisible Kingdom
"A page-turner in both directions, The Möbius Book explores some of the most propulsive questions at the core of human intimacy: What remains unknown (indeed, often unknowable) at the core of the people we know best? And how do we survive this unknowing? This wry, surprising, nimble book—allergic to genre labels, and positively vibrating with insight—achieves what only great art can manage: to be both impossible to imagine, and utterly necessary. I was absolutely spellbound." ―Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters
