Cusk is clearly searching for a life that feels unified and free, a way of being that will do what M says that L's paintings do - tell the world, I am here. Second, her books repeatedly explore the same themes - fate, family life, real estate and the tug of war between art and life, especially the attempt to shape our lives into meaningful narratives.

'Second Place' is filled with sharp perceptions about love, child-rearing and creativity that are, alas, too long to quote. First, she writes with a knife-thrower's precision and showmanship. Now, if you've read any Cusk, you'll know two things about her. While L has time for Tony and M's daughter Justine, with whom M has a tricky relationship, and even Justine's boring, entitled boyfriend Kurt, he can't be bothered with the one person who brought him there in hopes that his art might somehow rescue her. And even worse, he treats M dismissively. Instead, L turns up with a gorgeous young woman who makes her feel old and unattractive. When he accepts, she expects something transcendent to happen. In hopes of changing that, she offers up their rustic guesthouse to a famous painter called L, a child of the working class, whose art she found life-changing in Paris many years ago. Although their life seems happy, M keeps stewing over her sense that she's somehow insubstantial, invisible even to herself. The narrator, M, is a willful, sharp-eyed, not especially likeable writer whose strapping second husband Tony is a mensch who looks after their property. Loosely inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan's memoir of hosting Lawrence in Taos, N.M., in the 1920s, 'Second Place' tells a layered tale that, in its heightened fervor, feels as humid and murky as its marshy seaside setting. Where those crystalline novels were largely plotless and had the chilly burn of dry ice, this fascinating book finds her moving in a messier new direction. This quest still makes him a lodestar for many of today's writers, ranging from the sneaky-brilliant Geoff Dyer to fierce Rachel Cusk, who calls him her mentor.Ĭusk grapples with his spirit in 'Second Place,' her first novel since the Outline Trilogy, which is one of the great fictional achievements of the new millennium.

At the same time, Lawrence was a genuine seeker, a genius obsessed with addressing big questions about the nature of the self, what it means to love and how to be authentic in the world. And his gender politics were, to put it generously, retrograde. JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Of all the big British novelists of the 20th century, none is now less fashionable than D.H. Our critic at large John Powers says it's an enjoyably feverish tale about what we expect of art and artists. Her new novel, 'Second Place,' tells the story of a writer who invites a famous painter to stay at her guesthouse on the marshy coast of England. The English novelist Rachel Cusk is best known here for her three books known as the Outline Trilogy.

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