A review by lindserature
Outline by Rachel Cusk

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“This anti-description, for want of a better way of putting it, had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition: while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline; with all the detail filled in around it whole the shape itself remained blank. Yet this shape, even while its content remained unknown, gave her for the first time since the incident a sense of who she now was.”

This is a novel that is both simple and complicated. It is about a writer teaching a class in Athens, and is told through the conversations she has with people: friends, students, airplane seatmates. That is as much of a summary as this book has, though the themes brought up are considerably more intricate. There is no real central conflict; Cusk instead opts for more outer conflicts through these various characters, which make them somehow more real. Through these conversations, Cusk discusses our perceptions of ourselves and things we choose to reveal about ourselves in conversation, and how we need to read between the lines to find out who a person really is. It’s a wholly original and insightful novel, and I am excited to read more of Cusk in the future.