When she had read the passage where the second student insisted that the first student show the class that the dog was beautiful instead of just telling them he was beautiful, she had thought I was setting readers up for a demonstration of some kind. While she had been reading Outline, she told me, she had had the thought that the book was something of a manifesto proclaiming that 'telling' can be as powerful a tool in writing as 'showing', and she had continued to ponder that notion as she made her way through Transit.

'Well, I'm inclined to think you were making a point about the old 'show versus tell' chestnut,' she said. What exactly did you intend in that episode?' 'That episode about the dog,' she said, turning to me, 'the episode where the creative writing student succeeded in conveying to the class that his dog was beautiful even though he didn't know how to explain it initially. I watched as the reader glanced up from the page, sat for a moment without moving, then closed the book. She captures with unsettling restraint and honesty the longing to both inhabit and flee one's life and the wrenching ambivalence animating our desire to feel real. In this precise, short, and yet epic cycle of novels, Cusk manages to describe the most elemental experiences, the liminal qualities of life, through a narrative near-silence that draws language toward it.

In the city she is made to confront aspects of living she has, until now, avoided, and to consider questions of vulnerability and power, death and renewal, in what becomes her struggle to reattach herself to, and believe in, life.įiltered through the impersonal gaze of its keenly intelligent protagonist, Transit sees Rachel Cusk delve deeper into the themes first raised in her critically acclaimed Outline, and offers up a penetrating and moving reflection on childhood and fate, the value of suffering, the moral problems of personal responsibility, and the mystery of change. The process of upheaval is the catalyst for a number of transitions-personal, moral, artistic, practical-as she endeavors to construct a new reality for herself and her children.

In the wake of family collapse, a writer and her two young sons move to London. The stunning second novel of a trilogy that began with Outline, one of The New York Times Book Review’s ten best books of 2015.

Outline rachel cusk review