Wikipedia

Catherine Lacey (author)

For the actress, see Catherine Lacey.

Catherine Lacey (born April 9, 1985) is an American writer.

Catherine Lacey
Born (1985-04-09) April 9, 1985 (age 39)
Tupelo, Mississippi, U.S.
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
EducationColumbia University
Notable worksBiography of X, Pew
Notable awardsWhiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship
Website
www.catherinelacey.com

Career

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Lacey's first novel, Nobody Is Ever Missing, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Dwight Garner, in The New York Times, called her prose "dreamy and fierce at the same time."[1] Time Out named it "the (hands down) best book of the year."[2] It also made The New Yorker's list for the best books of 2014.[3] It has been translated into Dutch,[4] Spanish,[5] Italian,[6] French,[7] and German.[8] The novel was a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award.[9] In 2016, Lacey won a Whiting Award for her fiction.[10]

In 2017 Lacey was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists. Her second novel, The Answers (2017), was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It received several positive reviews and comparisons to Don DeLillo and Margaret Atwood.[11][12] In an interview with Vogue, Lacey said, "Even the person who wrote Nobody Is Ever Missing, I can’t really speak on her behalf anymore. The text is kind of what's left of that person, and that person doesn’t exist anymore. It both makes me very uncomfortable and very relaxed, because who you are and what you think that you’re attached to vanishes very quickly."[13]

 
From left: Lacey, Siri Hustvedt, and Salman Rushdie at a panel on "The Writer's Life" at the 2014 Brooklyn Book Festival

Lacey was a founding member of 3B, a cooperatively owned and operated bed and breakfast in downtown Brooklyn, where she lived as she wrote her first novel.[14] In 2012, Lacey won an Artists' Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts[15] that she credits in giving her the financial freedom to finish Nobody Is Ever Missing.[16]

Her 2020 novel, Pew, was shortlisted for the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize[17] and won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award.[18]

In 2023, she published her fourth novel Biography of X, a fictional biography. The New Statesman described it as a book that "thrillingly subverts the conventions of life-writing."[19] Time named it among "the 100 must-read books of 2023."[20] It was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2024.[21]

She has an upcoming debut nonfiction work, titled The Möbius Book, as well as an upcoming second short story collection, My Stalkers.[5]

Personal life

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In August 2015, she married actor and teacher Peter Musante; they divorced the next year. Lacey was partnered with writer Jesse Ball from 2016 to 2021.[22] She has taught at Columbia University in the Writing Program at the School of the Arts.[23]

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • —— (2014). Nobody Is Ever Missing (paperback 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374711283.
  • —— (2017). The Answers (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374100261.
  • —— (2020). Pew (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374230920.
  • —— (2023). Biography of X (hardcover 1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374606176.

Short fiction

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Nonfiction

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References

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  1. ^ Garner, Dwight (July 22, 2014). "Abandoning All Stability to Test Fate". The New York Times. Retrieved February 23, 2016. ... "Nobody Is Ever Missing" is composed mostly of long, languid sentences that push into the night like headlights. ... there's nothing depleted about Ms. Lacey's prose, which manages to be dreamy and fierce at the same time.
  2. ^ Gibert, Tiffany (November 19, 2014). "The 10 best books of 2014". TimeOut New York. Retrieved February 23, 2016. ...the (hands-down) best book of the year ...
  3. ^ Heller, Nathan (December 23, 2014). "The Best Books of 2014". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 23, 2016. ...incantatory, cool, and unerringly tuned to fresh detail. Lacey writes with a peculiar suppleness entirely her own...
  4. ^ "Niemand Is Ooit Verloren". Das Mag. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Catherine Lacey: "Todo el mundo necesita desaparecer en algún momento"". El Cultural. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  6. ^ "Nessuno scompare davvero – SUR". Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  7. ^ "Personne ne disparaît". Archived from the original on August 3, 2017. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  8. ^ "Niemand verschwindet einfach so". Aufbau Verlag. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  9. ^ "Young Lions Award List of Winners and Finalists". Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  10. ^ Piepenbring, Dan (March 23, 2016). "Introducing the Winners of the 2016 Whiting Awards". Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  11. ^ Lorentzen, Christian (July 6, 2017). "Can You Still Write a Novel About Love". Vulture. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  12. ^ Garner, Dwight. "'The Answers' Runs Down the Rabbit Hole of Love". The New York Times. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  13. ^ O'Grady, Megan (June 1, 2017). "Catherine Lacey's Dating Dystopia The Answers Is This Summer's Must-Read Novel". Vogue. Retrieved March 27, 2018.
  14. ^ Lacey, Catherine (April 19, 2014). "A Way for Artists to Live". The New York Times. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  15. ^ "New York Foundation for the Arts". Archived from the original on May 28, 2018. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  16. ^ NYFA.org (December 16, 2015). "Conversations: Sarah Dohrmann Interviews Catherine Lacey". NYFA.org - NYFA Current. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  17. ^ "Shortlist for Dylan Thomas Prize Is Revealed". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
  18. ^ "In the States, the Young Lions Fiction Award goes to Catherine Lacey". Publishing Perspectives. June 18, 2021.
  19. ^ Peirson-Hagger, Ellen (May 5, 2023). "Catherine Lacey's biography that isn't". The New Statesman. Retrieved May 8, 2023.
  20. ^ "Biography of X By Catherine Lacey". Time. November 14, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
  21. ^ Creamer, Ella (March 21, 2024). "Caleb Azumah Nelson and Mary Jean Chan shortlisted for Dylan Thomas prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved July 5, 2024.
  22. ^ Borrelli, Christopher (September 12, 2018). "'The Answers' author Catherine Lacey conjures sentences that can stop you cold". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved February 6, 2020.
  23. ^ "Catherine Lacey" Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Writing Program, Columbia University School of the Arts.
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