Toronto musician and producer Baby O shares two books about leading secret double lives
Liv Pasquarelli, also known as Baby O, recommends a couple novels on The Next Chapter
Is it possible to hide your past lives from those closest to you? What would lead a person to wanting to create an entirely new identity? Those are the questions brought up by a couple of Liv Pasquarelli's recent reads.
Pasquarelli is an associate producer at CBC Books and in their other life, they are known as a musician and guitarist by the name Baby O. They are currently based in Toronto and has recently released an EP called Visions I See Clearly.
As a reader and an artist, Pasquarelli was drawn to the idea of characters creating their own identities in fiction.
"I think what it showed me is how powerful it is to create a story about yourself. We can feel stifled by our identities and when you create a story for yourself you see how it can free you … possibilities start to feel endless."
Pasquarelli's The Next Chapter colleague, Ali Hassan, spoke with them about living the best and worst of both worlds.
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
A highly sought out multi-hyphenate artist named X shocks everyone when she is found dead in her office. Left reeling, her wife CM is determined to immortalize X's life and legacy into a book. In Biography of X, CM is sent down a rabbit hole of her wife's secrets and the history of the Southern Territory, which was a fascist state divided from America following the Second World War. Through decades of X's life prior to their marriage from her birthplace to her artistic projects with the likes of David Bowie and Tom Waits, Biography of X is a psychological novel of love, grief and identity.
"I think the suspense keeps you rolling through the pages and engaged because I was always just wondering what's the next wild thing I'm going to learn about this larger than life character," said Pasquarelli on X as a character. "So the mystery is a great aspect of the book because it really keeps you in the pages and moving with this long and complicated story."
Catherine Lacey is an American writer of several novels including The Art of the Affair and Pew. Biography of X was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New York Times, the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. She currently lives in Chicago.
The Fake by Zoe Whittall
The Fake is about Shelby, who signs up for a grief support group after her wife dies and grieving with her family becomes unbearable. There, she meets Cammie, a dynamic person who just so happens to have cancer. Shelby throws herself into supporting Cammie but the closer she grows to her, the more she begins to question the person she is supporting. When Shelby meets Gibson, a newly divorced man who is intimately involved with Cammie, the two of them soon realize Cammie may not be everything she says she is.
Pasquarelli noted the drive both Lacey's character of X and Whittal's character Cammie share: "Their motivation I believe came from a need to survive. X initially started lying to escape the South. Zoe Whittal alludes to the fact that Cammie might struggle with mental health challenges or might even be homeless.
"I think Cammie tells stories to win people's favour in order to keep herself housed to stay off the streets and maybe just to connect as well and feel loved."
Zoe Whittall is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. Her books include Bottle Rocket Hearts, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, a Lambda Literary Award winner, and The Best Kind of People, which was a finalist for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She's also a writer for the hit CBC comedy series Baroness Von Sketch Show and was a story editor on the sitcom Schitt's Creek. The Best Kind of People is being adapted for film by Sarah Polley. Whittall lives in Toronto.
Liv Pasquarelli's comments have been edited for clarity and length.
