The Book of X

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.

'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

'Insightful and incisive, this book cuts deep into the failing heart of the feminine mystique.' Amelia Gray, author of Isadora

'Sarah Rose Etter is a visionary. Perfectly paced, structurally audacious, and endlessly inventive, The Book of X is our new Revelation.' Scott McCLanahan, author of The Sarah Book

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)

Sarah Rose Etter is the author of the chapbook Tongue Party and the novels The Book of X and Ripe. Her work has appeared in Time, Guernica, BOMB, The Bennington Review, The Cut, VICE, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in fiction from Rosemont College. She lives in Los Angeles.

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