X A novel

Davis (The Earthquake Room) delivers an astonishing speculative tale of sex, power, and gender. In a near future, marginalized and unwanted people are "exported" by the fascistic government to camps and abroad. Lee, the narrator, is a sadist in Brooklyn, trying to find X, the woman they have become obsessed with after X topped them in a backroom at a warehouse concert. With few clues to X's whereabouts, Lee navigates through play parties, sex workers, and partners future and past to find X before she--or anyone else they know--is exported. Interspliced with Lee's pursuit are memories of neglect as a child and love as an adult. Along the way, Lee explores their relationship to pain as both an expression of punishment and of affection. Vivid and witty, Davis's prose hurtles between moments of beauty and darkness, often in the same breath. Here's Lee recounting how they would hold a former lover underwater in the bath: "she struggled, her breasts rising and sinking like feeding koi. In the water, her face was like an angel: shining, many-eyed, misshapen." It's just one of many ravishing explorations of the margins of a punishing world. This one hits hard. Agent: Julia Kardon, HG Literary. (June)

Bound and gagged in a Brooklyn warehouse, Lee is prepared to have their body tortured by a seductive femme known simply as "X." Lee's experience was meant to be a one-night stand and nothing more. Recently separated from their masochistic ex, Davis's (The Earthquake Room) nonbinary protagonist hates their corporate job, is behind on their rent, and is fearful that a corrupt government will export their friends for being undesirable. Lee tunes everything out with late-night walks and true-crime podcasts, but can't tune out their obsessive thoughts about X, especially when it's rumored that the dominatrix is facing exportation. Davis's novel is graphic and explicit, discussing snuff films and sexual fetishes against a dystopian background inspired by real-world political tensions. Unfortunately, Kai Rubio's narration falls flat, marred by a disinterested tone and a shallow emotional range. Although he never fully distances himself from this style, his pacing eventually shifts into a slightly higher gear to better reflect the growing tension and narrative excitement. VERDICT Davis's sophomore novel is a beautiful lens through which to observe subcultures shunned by a puritanical future society, but Rubio's lackluster narration inadequately serves this otherwise compelling work.--Andy Myers