Loss

The Möbius Book has been variously described as ‘a hybrid work that is both fiction and non-fiction’ and a ‘memoir-cum-novel’. Catherine Lacey herself asserts that it is a work of non-fiction, but with a qualifying ‘however’. It comprises two narratives, first- and third-person, and is published to be flipped 180 degrees. Ali Smith’s How to be Both had a similar format, as did Mark Danielewski’s Only Revolutions. All three force the reader into making a choice and living with the consequences. This is not cosmetic, as The Möbius Book is about decisions and repercussions. Lacey writes in the aftermath of two break-ups: a romantic one with a man referred to

‘CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY,’ the freshly issued death certificate read. In the craziness and shock of grief for her beloved sister Nell Gifford, who died at 4.20 p.m. on 8 December 2019, aged 46 (‘Cause of death: metastatic breast cancer’), Clover Stroud found herself clinging to those capitalised words. ‘Yes, the certificate was wrong… My sister was not the deceased and the very certificate I was holding was telling me that.’ She started searching for her everywhere. ‘Whereareyouwherareyouwhere-areyouwhereareyou’ she asks for one whole page of this book in an enlarged typeface denoting the din in her head. She feels as if she’s setting out into the evil depths