Coventry, Rachel Cusk
Coventry, Rachel Cusk
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Coventry
Essays

Author: Rachel Cusk

Narrator: Antonia Beamish

Unabridged: 7 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/01/2019

Synopsis

From Rachel Cusk, her first collection of essays about motherhood, marriage, feminism, and artRachel Cusk redrew the boundaries of fiction with the Outline trilogy, three “literary masterpieces” (Washington Post) whose narrator, Faye, perceives the world with a glinting, unsparing intelligence while remaining opaque to the reader. Lauded for the precision of her prose and the quality of her insight, Cusk is a writer of uncommon brilliance. Now, in Coventry, she gathers a selection of her nonfiction writings that both offers new insights on the themes at the heart of her fiction and forges a startling critical voice on some of our most urgent personal, social, and artistic questions.Coventry encompasses memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about literature, with pieces on family life, gender, and politics, and on D. H. Lawrence, Françoise Sagan, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Named for an essay Cusk published in Granta (“Every so often, for offences actual or hypothetical, my mother and father stop speaking to me. There’s a funny phrase for this phenomenon in England: it’s called being sent to Coventry”), this collection is pure Cusk and essential listening for our age: fearless, unrepentantly erudite, and dazzling to behold.

About Rachel Cusk

Rachel Cusk was born in Canada in 1967 and spent much of her childhood in Los Angeles before finishing her education at St Mary's Convent, Cambridge. She read English at New College, Oxford, and has travelled extensively in Spain and Central America. She is the author of six novels. The first, Saving Agnes (1993), won the Whitbread First Novel Award. A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother (2001) is a personal exploration of motherhood. In The Lucky Ones (2003) she uses a series of five narratives, loosely linked by the experience of parenthood, to write of life's transformations, of what separates us from those we love and what binds us to those we no longer understand. In 2003, Rachel Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'. Her latest novel is Outline (2014).

About Antonia Beamish

Antonia Beamish is a voice-over artist and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. She is also a professional actress best known for performances in films such as The Last Horror Movie, Dead Creatures, and Chemical Wedding.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Meike

This collection of essays combines memoir, social and literary criticism, and in a way, all of the texts are talking about storytelling: How we narrate our own lives and times is the main focus of Cusk's explorations. The author meditates about driving as a metaphor, the narrative families employ to......more

Goodreads review by Adam

Cusk is absurdly brilliant, acerbic, and honest - this collection shows much of the same spark as her fiction, especially in the more autobiographical essays like "Making Home" and the title essay - I wish the whole collection had been made of these, and admit to disappointment when it pivoted to he......more

Goodreads review by Trish

When I heard about a new book of essays by Rachel Cusk, I had two conflicting reactions: one was joy and one was sadness. Cusk is one of my favorite authors. She thinks deeply and can straightforwardly, analytically discuss her perceptions in involving prose but her characters can also demonstrate w......more

Quotes

“The British novelist shares her voice on everything from motherhood and marriage to art in these pieces, which jump between memoir, criticism, and writing about writing.” Time

“The essays…[are] first-rate, marked by candor and seriousness, and they’re familiar…[with] Cusk’s abiding themes—her obligations as mother, daughter, citizen, artist, and breadwinner.” New York Times

“In Coventry, the British author of the widely admired Outline trilogy shows how central the self is to her artistic vision.” New York Times Book Review

“In Coventry…Cusk explains that her parents periodically withdraw contact without explanation. When her mother reaches out to reconnect after one such absence, Cusk decides not to re-engage, preferring to take up permanent residence in Coventry. It is from this place of exile that she observes the workings of the world.” Financial Times (London)

“Cusk’s first collection of essays is a daring return to her own voice….It delves piercingly into familiar realms of motherhood, divorce, art, feminism, and family.” Slate

“An eloquent and engrossing selection of nonfiction writing that will enhance Cusk’s stature in contemporary literature.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Opening up the deep crevices of everyday life’s paradoxes, myths, and more, Cusk pulls apart the stories we tell to reflect on the mess underneath.” Booklist (starred review)

“The overriding thread binding her essays is…allowing people to make sense of their lives. It’s something Cusk interrogates exceptionally well throughout this well-crafted compilation.” Publishers Weekly

“Sassy, honest, and memorable. Readers will come away with numerous ‘aha’ moments.” Library Journal

“Impressive and wonderful. Rachel Cusk sees the truth where the rest of us can only make out shadows. Coventry is Cusk’s theory of forms.” Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse

Awards

  • Publishers Weekly Pick
  • Time Magazine Pick
  • BBC Culture Magazine Pick
  • Booklist Pick
  • New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
  • Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books
  • Literary Hub Pick
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