America

Almost the entirety of Biography of X is set in an alternate version of America that presupposes an event called The Great Disunion took place in the aftermath of World War II. The Great Disunion was a civil split between three portions of America, the Northern Territory, Southern Territory, and Western Territory, which led to the introduction of three autonomous governments in these spaces. Although the NT and WT maintained diplomatic unity, the ST became a fascist theocracy with strict anti-immigration laws and more or less plunged itself into darkness for fifty years before it was reabsorbed into the broader United States. This alternate history functions as an important backdrop for the entirety of the novel, as X was born and raised in the Southern Territory while C.M. has only experienced the relative privilege of the Northern Territory, which has almost entirely eradicated the oppression of women...