Culture 4 min read By Arthur Ellington
MacKenzie Scott's Substack Novel Draws Mixed Reviews as Critics Question Its Message
MacKenzie Scott's first novel in 13 years, published chapter by chapter on Substack, has left critics divided over its deliberate ambiguity and unconventional presentation.
MacKenzie Scott has published her first novel in 13 years, releasing it chapter by chapter on Substack rather than through a traditional publishing house. The book, Last Days in Two Nations (A History in Eighteen Minds), has drawn a mixed critical reception, with several reviewers describing it as baffling and difficult to untangle.
Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a philanthropist who has given away more than $26 billion, began releasing the novel on 8 August. The final instalment appeared on 31 August. The roughly 80,000-word, 317-page book was free to anyone who subscribed to the platform, bypassing major booksellers including Amazon, where she holds approximately a 4% stake from her 2019 divorce.
Set in a near-future America divided into the «Still United» states and an authoritarian breakaway regime called the Dakota Membership, the novel is told through the perspectives of 18 characters. Writer and editor Eve Sneider, reviewing the book for Business Insider, called its ending «a baffling conclusion fit for a baffling project» and said readers finish with more questions than answers about what Scott intended to convey. The New York Post described the work as «hard to untangle».
Sneider also criticised the book's presentation, noting that it was distributed as downloadable PDFs formatted like a manuscript in progress, double-spaced and with scattered typographical errors that gave it an unfinished feel. Other outlets focused less on literary merit and more on apparent parallels between characters and figures including Bezos and the second Trump administration.
Not all observers view the ambiguity as a flaw. Morissa Schwartz, founder of GenZ Publishing and a doctorate in literature, told Fortune that the uncertainty appears intentional in the prologue and epilogue, the sections she assessed. «Ambiguity appears purposeful in the framing sections,» Schwartz said. «But deliberate ambiguity still has to earn its keep. A reader can accept uncertainty about what an event means while needing clarity about who is speaking, when, and what is at stake. Those are different kinds of confusion.»
Schwartz also cautioned against interpreting the novel as a roman à clef about Scott's former husband or anyone else. «Hunting for a real-world counterpart can become a distraction if it turns every character into a clue and leaves their psychological contradictions unread,» she said.
A mixed reception is not new for Scott. Her debut, The Testing of Luther Albright, published in 2005, won an American Book Award. Her second novel, Traps, released in 2013, drew a cooler response, with Katy Waldman writing in The New Yorker in 2019 that it had few of the debut's merits and «most of its flaws».
Both of Scott's earlier novels went through traditional publishers. A Substack spokesperson told Inc. that the platform had no advance notice she was coming. «We want to give people the tools and flexibility to publish on their own terms, without needing an invitation or permission from us,» the spokesperson said.
Scott trained under Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and has spoken of her preference for complexity over simplicity. «I tend to be interested in complex problems more than simple ones,» she said in a 2013 interview with Charlie Rose. «I like to work on long projects. I like to endlessly analyze conversations and think about words and tinker with words.»
Scott almost never responds to press inquiries, whether about her writing or her philanthropy. The novel remains free to read on Substack, which may, for now, be the clearest statement she is willing to make.
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