Our Book of the Week is Rachel Cusk's new novel, Second Place. Clever and unsettling, and critical of the limiting structures of gender and privilege, the book is narrated by a woman who invites a long-admired artist to stay and work in her marsh-side cottage, only to suffer immensely from the chasm between reality and her expectations. 

>>Read Stella's review. 
>>Read Thomas's review. 
>>"Exquisitely cruel home truths."
>>"I was trying to find the edge."
>>When we no longer believe. 

>>The art of self-doubt. 

>>The limits of the self. 
>>"Fiercely odd."
>>Seething with discontent. 
>>Second Place "owes a debt" to Lorenzo in Taos, Mabel Dodge Luhan's 1932 memoir the time D.H. Lawrence came to stay with her in New Mexico. (>PDF.)
>>Cusk's essay on D.H. Lawrence can be read in Coventry. 
>>On what comes after figuring it out. 
>>You can live the wrong life. 
>>Cusk's marshside home hits the market. 
>>Second Place has just been long-listed for the 2021 Booker Prize. 
>>Read Thomas's 'autofictional' reviews of Outline, Transit, and Kudos. 
>>Your copy of Second Place.