I’ve read a lot of Rachel Cusk, and I was really surprised that I had never actually finished the Outline trilogy! It was fun to visit my “lockdown” author and finish the set. Better late than never.
From what I remember, this one is slightly different in tone to the other two. Less introspective, less emotional, it’s more a meditative look at the career of a writer and gender dynamics.
A woman author abroad at a literary conference, going from interviews to lunches, has a series of interesting encounters. Everything feels a bit untethered, a bit disjointed, but this also lends the conversations a certain confessional feel. One character after the next opens up a new avenue of thought. What happens to children and ex-husbands in acrimonious divorces? Can people really know each other? What makes a good writer? What does a happy marriage look like? Can we escape our domestic prisons? Or ourselves?
There’s also some interesting musings on modern literature and the publishing industry, the difficulties of selling books.
It’s a brilliant meditation on travel, of being abroad in the heat. There are some really great descriptions of the hotel and its immediate surroundings.
It’s quite a bleak book really, with a very damning description of gender politics, all sadly very relatable.
One word: discerning.
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