Rachel Cusk "Transit"
In the wake of family
collapse, a writer and her two young sons move to London. 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 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.
Filtered 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. 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. 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.
Second book of "The Outline Trilogy"
Paperback, 260 pages