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       THE BOOK OF X

      “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

      “I loved every page of this gorgeous, grotesque, heartbreaking novel.” —CARMEN MARIA MACHADO, author of Her Body and Other Parties

      “Insightful and incisive, this book cuts deep into the failing heart of the feminine mystique. Etter is a surgeon.” —AMELIA GRAY, author of Isadora

      “A haunting meditation on loneliness, loss, and meat, The Book of X is a manual for how to survive in a world that almost offhandedly wants to destroy you. In it the echoes of reality come out deeply weird — but somehow reveal more about the real by being so. A wonderfully strange and personal novel, in which nightmares and daydreams crosscontaminate.” —BRIAN EVENSON, author of The Open Curtain

      “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 The Pisces

      “Taut, macabre, with wounds electric, The Book of X will take your head off while staring dead-on into your eyes. Move over, Angela Carter, there’s a new boss in the Meat Quarry, and she is fearless, relentless, ready to feast.” —BLAKE BUTLER, author of 300,000,000

      “Sarah Rose Etter is a visionary. Perfectly paced, structurally audacious, and endlessly inventive—The Book of X is our new Revelation. Actually it’s better than that. Etter’s prose digs with emotion and a thousand unforgettable images. They just twist themselves deeper and deeper into your guts. It’ll probably take years to cut them out.” —SCOTT MCCLANAHAN, author of Crapalachia

       The Book of X

       A NOVEL

       Sarah Rose Etter

WHO WE ARE Two DOLLAR RADIO is a family-run outfit dedicated to reaffirming the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry. We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore.

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Love the PLANET? So do we.	Printed on Rolland Enviro. This paper contains 100% post-consumer fiber, is manufactured using renewable energy - Biogas and processed chlorine free.	Printed in Canada

All Rights Reserved	COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY SARAH ROSE ETTER
ISBN 9781937512811	Library of Congress Control Number available upon request.
Also available as an Ebook. E-ISBN 9781937512828	Book Club & Reader Guide of questions and topics for discussion is available at twodollarradio.com

      SOME RECOMMENDED LOCATIONS FOR READING THE BOOK OF X: Near a river, a graveyard, in outer space, or pretty much anywhere because books are portable and the perfect technology!

      ANYTHING ELSE? Yes. Do not copy this book—with the exception of quotes used in critical essays and reviews—without the prior written permission from the copyright holder and publisher. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means. WE MUST ALSO POINT OUT THAT THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s lively imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

       Are you living in hell? Well, try to make the most of it. —Carol Rama

      The Book of X

      CONTENTS

       PART I

       PART II

       PART III

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       PART I

      I WAS BORN A KNOT LIKE MY MOTHER and her mother before her. Picture three women with their torsos twisted like thick pieces of rope with a single hitch in the center.

      The doctors had the same reaction each birth: They lifted our slick warped bodies into the air and stared, horrified.

      All three of us wailed, strange new animals, our lineage gnarled, aching, hardened.

      Outside, beyond the bright white lights of the hospital, the machine of the world kept grinding on, a metal mouth baring its teeth, a maw waiting to clench down on us.

      “I’M NOT RELIGIOUS, BUT I DAMN WELL prayed,” my mother says, exhaling smoke over the kitchen table. “I rubbed the rosaries raw that you would take after your father.”

      My mother’s knot rests against the kitchen table. In my tender moments, I want to reach out and place a hand there.

      “But as soon as you crowned, I knew it,” my mother says. “I could feel your knot.”

      When my mother tells this story, I take long sips of my lemonade to keep quiet. I know she screamed the whole birth. I brought her the same pain she brought her mother.

      “Your father says I went possessed. My eyes rolled back into my head.”

      THERE ARE 4,500 DIFFERENT TYPES OF knots. There are 3,800 basic variations of these knots. There are an infinite number of

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