OUTLINE by Rachel Cusk (Harper Perennial), 256 pages, $19.99 paper. Rating: NNNN
Rachel Cusk’s unsettling novel Outline reads something like 10 monologues in search of a narrator.
The protagonist, Faye, whose name is revealed only very near the end, has come to Athens from her home in London, England, to teach a writers workshop. In the course of her travels and stay, she listens to friends, acquaintances and her new students recount their experiences.
Throughout the book, Faye is but a cipher, barely there yet paradoxically, absolutely present – she is the consummate listener.
Because the stories – told by a billionaire, a bestselling female author who’s discovered feminism, an aging lothario with three failed marriages behind him and her searching students – are about love, children, publishing, ambition, they are extremely absorbing.
They’re written as reported speech in Cusk’s crystalline prose, the kind in which a vivid subordinate clause can create enough drama to make you want to start the paragraph again. And Athens, with its bustling cafés, white marble apartments and stifling heat, is as much a character as Faye’s storytellers.
But at a certain point, I started to get restless. I was becoming too aware of the author’s strategy and began feeling the narrator’s absence more than I thought I should. But then I was propelled back into the narrative by my determined search for clues, something about the narrator that I could sink my teeth into, which in turn got me completely involved with the book.
Not that I got emotionally involved. Cusk’s created too much distance for anything that messy. Faye’s been divorced, she has children. She does say she’s not interested in another relationship and never will be. Except for a short comment on her interest in passivity, that’s all we learn.
Mysterious and brilliant.
Outline was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize. She lost the former and will find out about the latter on Tuesday (November 10).
susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole
