AJ Dunn Reads

  Kudos By Rachel Cusk Kudos is the final book in the Outline trilogy. Faye is out to promote her book in Europe. Like the other books in the trilogy, Faye is told various personal stories by several people she meets: a man on the plane, interviewers, fellow writers, and her son. Through these stories deep human questions are explored about love, family, justice, art, politics, and sorrow. The difference in Kudos is that Faye has more of a voice of her own. She expresses more opinions vocally than in the other two novels. It seems like the people she has met are far more interested in talking about themselves than in getting to know her, which is interesting given the "plot" of the book. Rather than talking about her work, the interviewers tell her stories and talk about themselves. Some time has past for Faye, who has remarried, though we aren't told anything about how that came to pass. Her children seem to be with their father a lot, and he seems to neglect to be wi...

  Transit By Rachel Cusk Transit is the second novel in the Outline trilogy. We are following Faye as she buys and begins to renovate a flat in London where her neighbors hate her and her sons have to be sent to their father's while the work is being done. Faye works to crate a new life, a new existence, for herself and her children. Along the way she goes through a series of transitions in all aspects of her life and psyche. As in Outline , Transit shows us these transitions through the stories Faye encounters from others in her life. Through those stories we see how she is working out the kind of person she is or wants to be, and the kind of life she wants to make for herself. Faye grapples with things she has been avoiding and, in doing so, starts to reconstruct her belief in life. This was just as good as Outline. The writing continues to be brilliant. It is very internal for all of the characters who are extremely vulnerable in their storytelling. It is more honest, raw pro...

  Outline By Rachel Cusk Outline tells the story of Faye, a writer staying in a rented apartment in Athens while teaching a writing workshop. On the way she gets into a conevrsation with one of her seatmates, learning deep things about his failed marriages, and the two reconnect after landing. She goes on boat trips with him where he eventually professes attraction toward her, an attraction she does not reciprocate, thus ending, for her, their friendship. During her stay she hears stories told by her students, stories from friends in Athens, and stories from strangers. She hears all about their lives; their anxieties, fantasies, regrets, longings, and ideas. Through their stories we learn about what she thinks of the shape of her own life after a divorce of her own, now living as a single mother. We learn through these stories the great loss she has suffered and how she will define herself as a result, how she will learn to redraw herself in her new reality. She must rely on herse...