Canadian-born Rachel Cusk’s last novel, Outline, was shortlisted for a slew of awards, including the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction – and her follow-up, Transit, will undoubtedly draw similar acclaim.
It’s once again narrated by Cusk’s watchful writer Faye, who, following the breakdown of her marriage, has moved to London with her two sons. Her life, much like our own, unfolds in a series of interactions with others – an ex-boyfriend on the school run, the “evil” neighbours in the flat below, the Polish workmen who are gutting her new home, two other writers speaking alongside her at a book festival, the students in her writing class, and finally, her Cotswolds-based cousin, who has swapped one life for another.
Faye listens intently to each one, and delves deeper into their psyches through her questions, but we rarely hear much from her, like so many one-way conversations.
Cusk has an incredible ability to mine universal truths from everyday mundanity, as she circles around self and other through childhood, relationships and motherhood, and fate versus choice.
Underlying it all is the idea of transit, that our lives are constantly changing and each moment and encounter is simply a passageway to the next.
Published by Jonathan Cape