Rachel Cusk Books In Order

Publication Order of Outline Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Rachel Cusk is an award-winning Canadian author. She has written a number of critically acclaimed but highly controversial autobiographical novels that delve into the challenges of her life as a writer, a mother, and a woman.

+Biography
Rachel Cusk was born in 1967. She was just one of four children, born to an adventurous couple. Her parents got married in the 1960s and then left England, making a home in Canada where Cusk was born.

But they did not stay long, eventually migrating to Los Angeles. The author was eight-years-old when they finally returned to England.

Because of her nomadic upbringing, Cusk was always fascinated by people who lived in the same places and the same houses for years and even decades at a time.

Even after the author grew into adulthood, she never lost her migratory approach to life. Cusk admits that she reached a point in her life when she started coping with difficulties by packing up her things and moving on to new places.

But the author doesn’t believe that the attitude cost her much in the long run. She learned early on that she could change homes and locations and still remain herself.

A student of New College, Oxford, Rachel Cusk read a lot when she was young. She also did quite a bit of writing but it wasn’t until she went to St. Mary’s Convent School, Cambridge that the seeds of the author that she would become were planted.

Cusk was eleven when she started her first term at the boarding school. The institution changed the author’s life because, for the very first time, Cusk was on her own.

She did not have the protection of her parents and she could no longer hide from the world behind the walls of an inviting home.

In truth, Rachel Cusk could not cope. So she took to writing. Cusk retreated. She learned to separate the goings on of the world outside from the peace she was determined to instill in her spirit.

She also talked to herself, a lot. As far as the author is concerned, St. Mary’s Covenant School allowed her to meet her inner self, to understand who she truly was, to make sense of the thoughts that frequently crossed her mind and the notions that formed the foundations of her beliefs.

And in spending so much time in her mind, the author discovered her own unique voice. Once Cusk started writing, she couldn’t stop.

Her words kept her company for eight confusing years. And all the literary experimenting she did made her writing style vigilant, precise and interrogative.

In a way, the author’s life is most accurately represented not when she talks about it but, rather, when she writes fiction. Her characters are constantly struggling to understand themselves.

They are broken creatures that can be equally funny and sad; they don’t know where they belong but they never stop trying to make sense of the world.

Critics have described the author’s work as cerebral and groundbreaking. Rachel Cusk is always looking for new ways to reinvent fiction. She isn’t bound by the rules and regulations of conventional storytelling.

Her objective is to write books that accurately capture the human experience, without relying heavily on traditional narrative tropes.

Cusk’s way of thinking has made her a controversial figure. She has admitted to not being very good at friendships.

According to the author, maintaining such relationships takes more effort than she is willing to apply. Cusk has found that she enjoys the company of her fellow writers because she can share the difficulties of her journey with them.

That being said, she has also said that she finds her bonds with writers appealing because they do not require quite as much commitment. So it would be false to call those relationships friendships in any conventional sense.

The author has been married twice. Her first marriage ended in disaster. Cusk captured the attention of the public when she wrote ‘Aftermath’, a book in which she spoke a little too truthfully about her relationship with her first husband, their children, and the divorce.

Rachel Cusk was lambasted by media personalities and the public at large for a number of perceived offenses. The reaction to ‘Aftermath’ changed the author’s entire approach to writing.

Cusk no longer concerns herself with people’s opinions of her work. She always writes each book certain that it will find at least one reader in the world who will appreciate its contents.

This is as opposed to setting out to acquire worldwide acclaim with every novel she writes.

Like many authors, Rachel Cusk tries to get her writing done in the morning. On a good day, Cusk will be up by 5AM. Her objective is to get as much work done as possible before the rest of the house rises.

+Outline
A female writer goes to Greece to teach. Along the way, she witnesses all manner of events, interactions, and occurrences.

The journey begins with her flight to Athens during which she encounters a passenger that is all too happy to share his life story. They exchange tales of love and heartache and the grind of daily life.

Then the writer gets to the city and she is met with a mix of heat and noise which paint a complex picture of life. Wherever she goes, the writer engages new listeners and storytellers.

She directs their accounts to find themes that resonate with her own life.

+Transit
The sequel to ‘Outline’ transports readers into the world of a writer who just survived the ravages of a family’s collapse. The writer takes her kids and runs off to London from where she hopes to start anew.

She must contend with the moral, personal and practical complications that come with such upheaval.

Rachel Cusk takes readers along for the ride as her heroine attempts to construct a new reality, one that will prove conducive for her young sons.

This is as her new city forces her to confront all the aspects of her past that she had worked so hard to ignore, all the mistakes made along the way, all the failures that she can no longer avoid.