A review by casskrug
Second Place by Rachel Cusk

4.0

one of my favorite things about making my way through rachel cusk’s catalog over the past few years has been synthesizing all of her work into a collection of reoccurring ideas and themes, and seeing how each book connects with the others. revisiting rachel cusk’s second place after reading 4 of her other books and doing some research into cusk’s life and the critical reception of her work gave me a new, more positive perspective on a book i felt ambivalent about initially. second place is about a woman who invites an artist she admires to come and stay on her property, in hopes that he will create art while there. of course, things don’t go to plan and we see how our narrator struggles to keep control of the situation.

having read her new release parade twice in the span of two weeks earlier this summer, i’ve been especially immersed in the world of cusk recently. she’s exploring a lot of parade-like themes in second place that i didn’t pick up on during my first read. knowing what motifs to look out for and being able to connect them to her other work made this reading experience so much more enjoyable and i was able to better understand what she was doing with the story. second place is exploring the way gender intersects with issues of violence and control, freedom, and invisibility. there are also some really interesting passages having to do with mother daughter relationships that i didn’t appreciate enough the first time around. i talk more about these themes and read some quotes to go along with them in my reading vlog.

i had remembered the writing style as being quite sparse, and don’t get me wrong, it can be stripped back. but this time around i was surprised to find the writing more descriptive than i thought it would be, and the characters more vivid than those of parade or the outline trilogy. i think cusk has an underrated knack for describing landscapes and settings - the descriptions of the marsh that the story takes place on were lovely. also, the story being addressed to the narrator’s friend jeffers allowed for more humor and personality to shine through, which was a fun switch up from her other novels.

i like this book so much more now and appreciate its place within the rachel cusk universe. this was a really great way to kick off a series of rereads that i plan on doing and just goes to show how our opinions and experiences can evolve with the passage of time.