- Home
- Fiction
- Contemporary Fiction
- Second Place
Second Place
From the author of the Outline trilogy, a fable of human destiny and decline, enacted in a closed system of intimate, fractured relationships.
42 in stock
Shipping to: UK & EU
UK Standard Delivery: £3 - 2-3 business days
UK Premium Delivery: £5 - Next working day delivery
EU Standard Delivery: Calculated at Checkout - 10-12 business days
Orders are sent by Royal Mail (UK) or FedEx / Deutsche Post (EU) and are tracked
Free delivery (UK) on orders over £35
Join Faber Members for 10% off your first order. Use code members10.
Summary
** Order Life of M, the new novel from Rachel Cusk, now **
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
RECIPIENT OF THE PRIX FEMINA ÉTRANGER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOVERNER GENERAL’S AWARD
‘The most singular book … a psychodrama that is both timeless and up-to-the-minute.’ Guardian
‘A classic, but with contemporary urgency thumping through it.’ Claire-Louise Bennett
‘A novel of deep insight and scarring honesty.’ Independent
A woman invites a famed artist to the remote coastal landscape where she lives. Drawn to his paintings, she believes his vision may penetrate the mystery at the centre of her life. But as a long, dry summer sets in, his provocative presence soon twists the patterns of her secluded household.
Critic Reviews
Cusk has glimpsed the central truth of modern life . . . She moves through it as a blasted centre full only of instinct and superhuman hearing and hackles.
Critic Reviews
Rachel Cusk is always an exciting writer: striking and challenging, with a distinctive cool prose voice, and behind that coolness something untamed and full of raw force . . .
Critic Reviews
Bewildering and bewitching.
Critic Reviews
A stranger comes to stay in this fascinating, uncomfortable exploration of creativity, the male gaze and the gendered experience of freedom. Cusk’s story of a female writer’s power struggle with a male artist is one of the first novels to take inspiration from lockdown.
Critic Reviews
Ever inventive, Cusk keeps pushing the novel into new terrain.
Critic Reviews
Cusk is really interested in ideas — how to live, what freedom means, the ways women subsume themselves into the lives of others … The hybrid form that results — half-novel, half-not — has a timeless, enduring quality.
RachelCusk
Rachel Cusk is the author of Second Place (Prix Femina étranger), the Outline trilogy, the memoirs A Life’s Work and Aftermath and several other works of fiction and non-fiction, including her most recent novel, Parade (Goldsmiths Prize, 2024). She is a Guggenheim Fellow, the recipient of the 2024 Malaparte Prize and has been awarded the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre…
Read MoreRachelCusk
Also Recommended
Browse a selection of books we think you might also like, with genre matches and a few wildcards thrown in.
Related Journal Articles
From one of contemporary fiction’s most celebrated writers, Life of M is a blazing interrogation of fame, power, beauty and …
Whether your bag is escapist fiction or you’ll be stubbornly reading a philosophical tome with your Aperol Spritz this summer, …
If you’re looking for reading inspiration, look no further. Here is our list of influential and important works of literature …
From sea adventures to interconnected narratives, we’ve picked out the best three-part sagas, long and short, from our list for …
One of our greatest writers, Rachel Cusk has written award-winning books of fiction including the Outline trilogy, as well as …
Second Place, the new novel by the internationally acclaimed author of the Outline trilogy, Rachel Cusk, will be published on …
New unabridged audio editions of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy to be narrated by Kristin Scott Thomas
This Valentine's Day we are reading and recommending books which celebrate love, but without romance. Read on for books about …