X

The novel X, by Davey Davis is an edgy and queer noir set in the nightmarish landscape of a near-future New York City where fascism is no longer incipient but arrived.

In a bleak near-future New York, down-and-out sadomasochist Lee finds themself in the midst of the violent purging of migrants and refugees. In a snowballing constriction of civil rights, the government has begun encouraging the voluntary "exporting" of undesirable citizens: the minorities, the radicalized, the dissident, the ungovernable. After a chance encounter with someone named X, Lee is drawn out of their post-breakup paralysis and into the pursuit of pure, perverted pleasure in warehouses, bathrooms, and dungeons across Brooklyn. Knowing they are both in danger of exportation, and chasing a misplaced retribution from their ex, Petra, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances Lee may have been responsible for, Lee obsessively attempts to track down X before she exports and is gone forever.

Davey Davis writes about the nightmare world of late-capitalist fascism and the underground life it engenders with the kinky intellectualism of Jane DeLynn, the energy of Samantha Schweblin and Han Kang, cut with the queer noir of Sarah Schulman. X unabashedly delves into the psyches of characters usually sidelined and marginalized, and also tackles the blurred line of abuse and sadomasochism in the BDSM community. Davey's writing is completely engrossing, and X is the kind of dark and boundary-pushing novel that we need to thrust into the world as we steel ourselves against the current political landscape.


Davey Davis writes about culture, sexuality, and trans embodiment. Their nonfiction can be found at The New Inquiry, them.us, BOMB Magazine, and other places. Their first novel, the earthquake room, is available through TigerBee Press.