“Second Place,” Rachel Cusk’s first novel after the radical, brilliant “Outline” trilogy, follows a forceful woman who’s had enough of difficult men. Her three most recent novels, “Swimming Home,” “ Hot Milk” and “The Man Who Saw Everything,” were all nominated for Booker prizes.īooks Review: Rachel Cusk trades in a blank-slate narrator for a tall drink of vinegar
Levy takes stock of the many ways in which “Life had taken a turn for the better.” Although she’s been writing since her 20s - initially mostly plays and poetry - her career finally took off in her 50s. Writing in pre-pandemic 2019 on the cusp of her 60th birthday, she ponders how she wants to live now that her younger daughter is headed to college and she’ll be untethered from the crumbling North London apartment block she and her two daughters moved into after her divorce. “ Real Estate,” which finds Levy in a good place, focuses on her relationship with property, ownership and home. (“Freedom is never free,” she notes in “The Cost of Living.”)
That required leaving her marriage to start afresh at age 50 - a costly risk, financial and otherwise, but worth the price. In the middle volume of her “ Living Autobiography” trilogy, British writer Deborah Levy asked, “What does it take for a woman to be the main character in her life?” Her bracing trio of memoirs - which began with “Things I Don’t Want to Know” in 2013, continued with “The Cost of Living” in 2018, and now concludes in fine form with “Real Estate” - explores questions of female autonomy and self-realization (although the author would never describe it in such clinical terms).įor Levy, becoming the main character in her life involved finding her voice and making herself heard in a patriarchal world. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.
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