Rachel Cusk
In the afterword to her most recent novel, Second Place, Rachel Cusk states she was inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan’s 1932 memoir of the time D. H. Lawrence stayed with her in Taos, New Mexico. Unlike in Luhan’s memoir, the visitor in Cusk’s novel is an artist, not an author.
Second Place is in the form of an extended monologue. The first-person narrator is identified as M. She addresses the monologue to her friend, Jeffers, telling him about the time L, the artist, visited her and her husband in their home on the marshes. The title refers to the second home they constructed as a guest house for visiting artists to work unencumbered by the outside world. It also refers to M’s self-identification as someone who is, at best, second place and subordinate.
M is a conflicted, tortured soul plagued with questions about her identity as a woman, her skills at parenting, her need for recognition, and her role in her marriage. She is not a particularly likeable character. She invites the celebrated artist L to stay in her home because she feels connected to him through his paintings. She wants to see her marshes through his eyes. But above all, she wants him to paint her, as if by seeing her he will, somehow, endow her with self-worth. When L eventually shows up, he recognizes her intensity and need for attention. He reacts by distancing himself from her. M’s frustration grows and eventually comes to a head.
This brief summary might lead one to believe this is a lengthy, boring monologue where very little happens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although M is not particularly likable, her words are hypnotic and fascinating. While wallowing in self-examination and self-doubt, she philosophizes about the meaning of freedom, the role gender plays in our identity formation, selfhood, power dynamics, positions of privilege, marginalization, the nature of parenting, marriage, the role of art in society and its relationship to life, and the character of the artist. She contrasts her approach to life with that of her steadfast husband, Tony. She shares her feelings toward her daughter and how parenting her now adult child is fraught with tension.
Cusk peppers her sentences with lyrical, breathtaking descriptions, most notably of the landscape. She sustains interest through the potency of her pronouncements and deliberations. Almost every other sentence invites contemplation. This is a compelling work in which words need to be savored, read, and re-read for their piercing insights about life, relationships, and identity.
Highly recommended.