Genesis was published by Viking in 2003. It is Crace’s most conventionally realistic novel — set in a recognizable contemporary city (unnamed, but clearly urban, industrial, modern) rather than his usual invented or historical settings. Lix, a middle-aged actor of moderate success, sleeps with a stranger during a political demonstration and she becomes pregnant. The novel traces the consequences of this careless act across decades.
Lix has fathered children by multiple women throughout his life — each conception described in a separate narrative strand — and the novel explores what fatherhood means to a man who has never fully committed to it. His biological productivity contrasts with his emotional timidity: he creates life easily but struggles to sustain the relationships that life requires.
The title is deliberately provocative: “genesis” as both biological beginning and theological creation myth. Crace — atheist, materialist — strips the concept of its divine associations and examines it as purely physical: the meeting of sperm and egg, the division of cells, the growth of a body. The miracle of creation is not supernatural but entirely natural — and therefore both more ordinary and more astonishing than theology makes it.
Collecting Genesis
First edition (Viking, London, 2003): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good: $10–$20