MacKenzie Scott’s first novel in 13 years is being called ‘baffling’—and critics are left asking what message she’s trying to send

MacKenzie Scott isn’t like many billionaire philanthropists. She’s given away more than $26 billion while saying almost nothing in public. So when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife finished publishing her first novel in 13 years last month, readers combed it for clues and insights into her inner thoughts. 

But what several of them found instead was confusion.

Writer and editor Eve Sneider, for one, called the book’s ending “a baffling conclusion fit for a baffling project” in her Business Insider review, and said readers come away with more questions than answers about what Scott wanted to say. The New York Post called it “hard to untangle.”

Scott released the novel chapter by chapter on Substack beginning Aug. 8. By publishing Last Days in Two Nations (A History in Eighteen Minds) that way, she bypassed a publishing house and any major bookseller—including Amazon, where she holds roughly a 4% stake from her 2019 divorce. The roughly 80,000-word, 317-page book was free to anyone who subscribed, and the final installment dropped Aug. 31.

The novel is set in a near-future America split in two: the “Still United” states and an authoritarian breakaway regime called the Dakota Membership, run by a president named Damian Paxton. Scott tells the story through 18 characters’ perspectives, which Sneider described as a “departure” from her earlier, more conventional fiction. Her other works are The Testing of Luther Albright (2005) and Traps (2013).

Scott has never really wanted to take the easy way out with writing. She did train under the inimitable Toni Morrison, after all.

“I tend to be interested in complex problems more than simple ones,” Scott 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.”

‘Deliberate ambiguity still has to earn its keep’

That complexity, though, is what critics are wrestling with. Beyond the plot, Sneider took issue with how the story was presented: downloadable PDFs formatted like a manuscript in progress. She also said it was double-spaced and had a scattering of typos that she said gave the book an unfinished feel. 

Other outlets overlooked the work’s literary elements, comparing characters in the novel to both Bezos and the second Trump administration.

Not everyone reads the confusion as a failure. Morissa Schwartz, founder of GenZ Publishing and a doctorate in literature, told Fortune the ambiguity looks intentional—at least 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.”

She also cautioned against reading the book as a roman à clef—a novel in which real people appear thinly disguised as fictional characters—about Scott’s ex-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,” Schwartz said.

A mixed reception isn’t new for Scott. Luther Albright won an American Book Award, but Traps drew a cooler response. Katy Waldman wrote in The New Yorker in 2019 that it had few of Scott’s debut novel’s merits and “most of its flaws.” 

Both of Scott’s other novels went through traditional publishers; a Substack spokesperson told Inc. 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,” they told Inc.

Scott almost never responds to press inquiries, whether about her writing or philanthropic endeavors. The novel is still free to read on Substack, so for now, that may be the clearest statement she’s willing to make.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com