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In the Fold
When eighteen-year-old Michael visits the Hanbury's remote family home he is captivated by their bohemian lifestyle. Years later, when he marries the strong-willed, beautiful Rebecca, he is secretly hoping to create his own version of that free-thinking family, but after the birth of their first child, their marriage begins to flounder. The chance to escape once more to his friend's country house comes as a welcome relief, until he discovers a family changed, and his own romantic notions of country life begin to disintegrate . . .
240 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2005
35 people are currently reading
1079 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Cusk
60 books5,130 followersRachel Cusk was born in Canada, and spent some of her childhood in Los Angeles, before her family returned to England, in 1974, when Cusk was 8 years old. She read English at New College, Oxford.
Cusk is the Whitbread Award–winning author of two memoirs, including The Last Supper, and seven novels, including Arlington Park, Saving Agnes, The Temporary, The Country Life, and The Lucky Ones.
She has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes: her most recent novel, Outline (2014), was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmith's Prize and the Bailey's prize, and longlisted for Canada's Giller Prize. In 2003, Rachel Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'
She lives in Brighton, England.
Cusk is the Whitbread Award–winning author of two memoirs, including The Last Supper, and seven novels, including Arlington Park, Saving Agnes, The Temporary, The Country Life, and The Lucky Ones.
She has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes: her most recent novel, Outline (2014), was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmith's Prize and the Bailey's prize, and longlisted for Canada's Giller Prize. In 2003, Rachel Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'
She lives in Brighton, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
April 15, 2019
An interesting mid-period Cusk novel that was longlisted for the Booker prize - this one is something of a hybrid between the rural comedy of The Country Life and the introspection of Arlington Park, and unusually for Cusk her narrator and central character is male.
In the first chapter Michael and Adam are undergraduates in neighbouring rooms. Michael receives an invitation from Caris, Adam's younger sister who he has never met, to a party at Egypt, which turns out to be the family sheep farm above a small town on the Somerset coast. He is introduced to the farm's somewhat dysfunctional menage but comes away feeling it had an idyllic quality.
The remainder of the book takes place several years later. Michael is now living in Bath and is married with a small son, living in an old house belonging to his in-laws. When a balcony of the house collapses, he rings Adam for advice but instead receives a request to help them with lambing while Adam's father is in hospital.
On his return, Egypt is in crisis, and as the events there play out he discovers that his own marriage was not what he thought.
In the first chapter Michael and Adam are undergraduates in neighbouring rooms. Michael receives an invitation from Caris, Adam's younger sister who he has never met, to a party at Egypt, which turns out to be the family sheep farm above a small town on the Somerset coast. He is introduced to the farm's somewhat dysfunctional menage but comes away feeling it had an idyllic quality.
The remainder of the book takes place several years later. Michael is now living in Bath and is married with a small son, living in an old house belonging to his in-laws. When a balcony of the house collapses, he rings Adam for advice but instead receives a request to help them with lambing while Adam's father is in hospital.
On his return, Egypt is in crisis, and as the events there play out he discovers that his own marriage was not what he thought.
September 1, 2018
This book, like so many of those by Cusk, interrogates the nature of ‘artist’ and ‘art,’ but also the nature of marriage and personal fulfillment, of love and desire. Unlike any of Cusk’s novels, the main character is a man, which complicates the interpretation for so many who draw a straight line from narrator to author. This work, which might seem a puff piece by anyone else, is difficult, thorny, a nervous system of connections that raises questions about how we should live.
What does the title mean? Does it mean in the arms [fold] of the family, in the fold of female genitalia as in birth, or in the fold of a letter, opened, to discover something dreadful has come to pass? For each of these suggestions there is some support in the book.
Our narrator, Michael, and Adam Hanbury lived next door to one another at school. Adam’s sister Caris invites Michael to her eighteenth birthday party at the family pile—a farm overlooking the sea—called Egypt. The family is large and constantly in motion. Someone is always saying or doing something to provoke another.
Michael is accepted and admired by the family, drawing him in. The moment catches in his imagination as though in a photograph, illuminating the potential in family relationships. He is experiencing a stumble in his own marriage some years later, but when he once again visits the Hanburys in Egypt, he does not feel the love.
I love watching Cusk navigate the male imagination. She is restrained: she tries not to step outside the lines into “that definitely wouldn’t be so” territory. But perhaps even more fascinating is her look at the female imagination. Michael’s wife Rebecca recently had a child. She is struggling with her ‘art’…she is a painter who paints very little indeed. She instead takes a job in an art gallery and seems to find her niche. She is confident, smooth, successful. Except that she is unhappy with her faithful husband, new child, lovely home, fulfilling job.
Throughout the novel are seeded mentions of gruesome murders of one spouse by another that happened in history. The houses of Rebecca’s parents are a factor in how Michael perceived them…he has an allergic reaction to their moral ambivalence: not only did they have no interest in being virtuous, “they concerned themselves with domineering feats of patronage and ostentatious magnanimity.”
Rebecca is trying to escape her parents’ life but is their daughter, after all. She wanted a child, but that child Hamish would become Michael’s responsibility
So what is this book about? It involves what people do to one another, even while professing love. We have to make sure to “ask questions” of our partners, of ourselves, to get to the heart of our feelings. The book is about family, how damaging it can be while appearing to provide succor, and how difficult, if not impossible, to break free. Always, the self-examination, the questions we ask ourselves, are key to some degree of autonomy.
For those familiar with the story, I wonder why we only got a glimpse of Beverly, the one figure in the book who appeared autonomous.
The dogs that terrorize Vivian in her own home might be the multi-headed dog Cerebus, who guarded the Gates of Hell to keep the dead [Vivian] from leaving. In the end, she kills the dogs and escapes.
This novel feels more a tragedy than other Cusk novels I have read. Those other novels, by some lightness of attitude, made us feel a kind of camaraderie with the human condition. We do not want camaraderie with these people. We do not want to be them. It is more a warning Cusk is giving us. Question everything.
What does the title mean? Does it mean in the arms [fold] of the family, in the fold of female genitalia as in birth, or in the fold of a letter, opened, to discover something dreadful has come to pass? For each of these suggestions there is some support in the book.
Our narrator, Michael, and Adam Hanbury lived next door to one another at school. Adam’s sister Caris invites Michael to her eighteenth birthday party at the family pile—a farm overlooking the sea—called Egypt. The family is large and constantly in motion. Someone is always saying or doing something to provoke another.
Michael is accepted and admired by the family, drawing him in. The moment catches in his imagination as though in a photograph, illuminating the potential in family relationships. He is experiencing a stumble in his own marriage some years later, but when he once again visits the Hanburys in Egypt, he does not feel the love.
I love watching Cusk navigate the male imagination. She is restrained: she tries not to step outside the lines into “that definitely wouldn’t be so” territory. But perhaps even more fascinating is her look at the female imagination. Michael’s wife Rebecca recently had a child. She is struggling with her ‘art’…she is a painter who paints very little indeed. She instead takes a job in an art gallery and seems to find her niche. She is confident, smooth, successful. Except that she is unhappy with her faithful husband, new child, lovely home, fulfilling job.
Throughout the novel are seeded mentions of gruesome murders of one spouse by another that happened in history. The houses of Rebecca’s parents are a factor in how Michael perceived them…he has an allergic reaction to their moral ambivalence: not only did they have no interest in being virtuous, “they concerned themselves with domineering feats of patronage and ostentatious magnanimity.”
Rebecca is trying to escape her parents’ life but is their daughter, after all. She wanted a child, but that child Hamish would become Michael’s responsibility
“like the pets people buy their tender, clamorous children; children who then harden, as though the giving, the giving in, were proof in itself that in order to survive and succeed in the world, you must be more callous and changeable than those who were so easily talked into accessing to your desires.”This novel, as a novel, has some difficulties, but Cusk’s perceptions and humor are intriguing enough to carry us over any rough spots. In fact, it may be her very perceptions that make this ride bumpy. We spend lots of time reconciling her vision of who these people are and almost miss the car crash of a marriage breakup unfolding in slow motion before our eyes.
So what is this book about? It involves what people do to one another, even while professing love. We have to make sure to “ask questions” of our partners, of ourselves, to get to the heart of our feelings. The book is about family, how damaging it can be while appearing to provide succor, and how difficult, if not impossible, to break free. Always, the self-examination, the questions we ask ourselves, are key to some degree of autonomy.
For those familiar with the story, I wonder why we only got a glimpse of Beverly, the one figure in the book who appeared autonomous.
“Beverly was the healthiest human I had ever laid eyes on. She was twenty-five or so, and she looked as I imagined people were meant to look. Her broad brown body was distinctly female and yet there was nothing slender or shiny about her. She was like a piece of oak. Her hair was light matte brown and curly and her eyes were bright, friendly lozenges of green. I didn’t think she was married, I imagined her associating with a menagerie of animals, like a girl in a children’s story.”We cannot call Beverly a goddess, unless she is one type of goddess while the youthful Caris is another. Beverly might be the goddess of fertility while Caris is the goddess of desire. The older Caris has become disillusioned and vengeful, quite like Greek goddesses of old, and the shifting nature of the Hanbury family has something tragic in its outlines.
The dogs that terrorize Vivian in her own home might be the multi-headed dog Cerebus, who guarded the Gates of Hell to keep the dead [Vivian] from leaving. In the end, she kills the dogs and escapes.
This novel feels more a tragedy than other Cusk novels I have read. Those other novels, by some lightness of attitude, made us feel a kind of camaraderie with the human condition. We do not want camaraderie with these people. We do not want to be them. It is more a warning Cusk is giving us. Question everything.
March 3, 2023
This was so good. Cusk writes these scenes of human interaction like she is painting a portrait. I love how the scenes resemble a Karamazov level of detail and expression when it comes to the characters and their personalities.
If this is what Rachel Cusk’s pre-Outline work is like, I can’t wait to get to the rest of her ouvre. I think having read Outline allows you to become acquainted with Cusk’s observational style, which makes dipping into her other fiction such a treat.
I believe this particular title was ahead of its time, and would have a different type of “success” or notoriety nowadays. But who cares about that anyway. Cusk is ahead of and above the rest.
If this is what Rachel Cusk’s pre-Outline work is like, I can’t wait to get to the rest of her ouvre. I think having read Outline allows you to become acquainted with Cusk’s observational style, which makes dipping into her other fiction such a treat.
I believe this particular title was ahead of its time, and would have a different type of “success” or notoriety nowadays. But who cares about that anyway. Cusk is ahead of and above the rest.
March 31, 2017
A few years ago I went to the pub with a friend of mine, Jamie, and a friend of his, Gerard. After listening to Gerard speak without pause for half an hour I excused myself and went to the loo. A few seconds later, Jamie followed me in.
“I had to have a break.” I said. “He's just so boring.”
“I know.” said Jamie. “I'm so sorry.”
We hugged and went back to the table. Gerard repeated the last word he had said before I left and then carried on with the sentence.
Reading this novel reminded me of that day. It's such a shame, because the writing is pretty good. She's got the skills but not the soul.
She's fond of her similes and some are hit but most are miss. I'm not sure if she's going for an elevated tone or showing off or what, she's definitely putting the effort in, but she gives these outlandish similes to describe such boring things they just seem out of place.
Her dialogue is really good. She may use it to have her characters say incredibly uninteresting things, but it sounds real and she made me laugh three or four times.
“I had to have a break.” I said. “He's just so boring.”
“I know.” said Jamie. “I'm so sorry.”
We hugged and went back to the table. Gerard repeated the last word he had said before I left and then carried on with the sentence.
Reading this novel reminded me of that day. It's such a shame, because the writing is pretty good. She's got the skills but not the soul.
She's fond of her similes and some are hit but most are miss. I'm not sure if she's going for an elevated tone or showing off or what, she's definitely putting the effort in, but she gives these outlandish similes to describe such boring things they just seem out of place.
Her dialogue is really good. She may use it to have her characters say incredibly uninteresting things, but it sounds real and she made me laugh three or four times.
October 21, 2024
What a promising storyline, an appealing cover and an interesting start. Unfortunately the writing seems to fall into being a complete load of old bollocks!
For example: 'On the contrary, Rick's gallery was constantly awash in an apparently inexhaustible fund of notoriety and success, and the more these two commodities could be observed in the infallible business of their synthesis, the clearer an impression of its elemental steadiness could be obtained.' p.30
There's lots more of that too!
The dialogue between characters is believable but then the ensuing paragraphs read as if Cusk has consulted the synonyms list for a 'better' word. It reads as being pretentious gobble-de-gook.
30/7/11
For example: 'On the contrary, Rick's gallery was constantly awash in an apparently inexhaustible fund of notoriety and success, and the more these two commodities could be observed in the infallible business of their synthesis, the clearer an impression of its elemental steadiness could be obtained.' p.30
There's lots more of that too!
The dialogue between characters is believable but then the ensuing paragraphs read as if Cusk has consulted the synonyms list for a 'better' word. It reads as being pretentious gobble-de-gook.
30/7/11
January 14, 2025
Det är lite spännande att läsa äldre Cusk-böcker, och litegrann leta efter hennes uttryck nu, om det fanns redan då. Och jag skulle säga att In the fold har rätt mycket av konturtrilogin, men i en tyngre uppsättning, "dense" är ordet jag vill använda. Hon använder Mickael som observatören här, men följer också tydligare hans narrativ, även om det just inte kommenteras utan mer visas (med undantaget av Adams respons på när han väl säger något om sitt eget liv. Fokus ligger på hans fru Rebecca som uppenbarligen intet rivs med honom, med att vara mamma, med sig själv, och familjen Hanburys kaos, som förvränger bilden han haft av deras okonstlade liv som förebild. Michael står kvar i rasmassorna av den fallna balkongen som kunnat döda honom, ett faktum som ingen tycks vara särskilt bekymrad över.
December 7, 2017
Fiercely intelligent. For fans of Iris Murdoch and Ivy Compton-Burnett.
November 22, 2023
People don’t talk like this in real life, especially not in dialogue. Just another step towards Cusk finding her feet and writing a plotless book inside the mind of a thinky woman.
January 18, 2018
This book started well--the first chapter was quite good---but then it lost it's way. There was trouble with continuity, and by using too many big, descriptive words in one sentence, the narrative became very heavy and in the end I didn't care about the characters.
December 10, 2021
(4.0-4.5*)
Deliciously compulsive, hilarious, sharp and - at times - heartbreaking.
Deliciously compulsive, hilarious, sharp and - at times - heartbreaking.
July 10, 2020
this book is not what you expect it to be when you start reading it. what a journey!
January 17, 2019
I really hate to do this, but I have to give this book the harshest criticism that I have ever given to a book. This book is boring!! The absolute dullest book I have ever attempted to read. I really had trouble finishing it. The premise is interesting enough. Young Michael goes to visit his college roommate for the roommate’s sister’s 18th birthday party at the family home, known only as Egypt. Michael is intrigued by the family’s pastoral Bohemian lifestyle. He’s amazed by the fact that the divorced parents, the stepmother, and the mother’s new friend all hang out together. He is charmed by the beautiful sister, Caris. Michael holds that memory precious. Years later, Michael is married with a young son, Hamish. He works as a lawyer in a small practice, and lives in a pretentious suburban home. His marriage his troubled, and Michael is discontented with his life. When his old roommate Adam calls him up to ask him to return to Egypt and help with the lambing while Adam’s father is hospitalized, Michael takes Hamish and eagerly returns to his ideal, but as a grownup, he finds it rather changed. The novel explores Michael’s continued disillusionment and the destruction of Adam’s family unit. Sadly, the novel fails to live up to the interest of the premise. While dialogue is important to a novel, and the author does an excellent job with the dialogue, that is all the novel has. It’s pages and pages of people talking, and then Michael expounding his rambling thoughts about life. It’s tiresome. It’s dull. It’s monotonous. It’s boring. And I would recommend that you do not read it.
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August 6, 2009I'm not sure how to rate this -- it was objectively quite good, but I never quite got into it. It's like the most cynical possible take on Brideshead Revisited, combined with a critique of modern fakey plastic values. But Cusk also skewers modern pretentious concerns about "authenticity," so there's nothing (except maybe the narrator's relationship with his possibly autistic toddler) that's real. Perhaps that's why I didn't like it much -- there's little to like, although the people and incidents are always interesting and Cusk writes beautifully.
November 4, 2017
Lots of negative reviews here, I see. That's what makes horse races. I thought it was excellent, smart and sharp as an exploration of the limits of bohemia, the confines of marriage and friendship, class and conflict. Reading it in reverse order - her more recent work is more celebrated, but certainly well worth the effort.
April 8, 2018
I could give it 3.5 stars. It contained some fantastic bits, some amazing sentences, it was very smart and funny. But at times it was confusing and I lost track of who was who as the characters never seemed to get introduced. - Just a lot of names. ... The middle rambled. The end came together well.
June 30, 2024
3.5⭐️
My mind is buzzing with Rachel Cusk’s wistful words, I don’t know where to begin so I apologise for my mind’s vomit as it spews haphazardly.
In The Fold is a wondrous thing, I think it’s the magic of Cusk’s words that sweeps you into this dreamlike status. There’s an odd but delightful sense to this book. I’ve noted how many people in other reviews have remarked the absurdity of the conversations that take place within this novel, how unrealistic they are. I agree but it didn’t sway it, I think it shouldn’t be taken for face value, I see it as conversations that happen in dreams, everything seems ordinary and day-to-day but there’s something off still. Or even how the rich speak, how they feel degrees different to us with every aspect to their lives including what troubles them in their day.
On a more personal note and opinion, on the subject of how characters speak in contemporary novels, I felt the same complaints people had for this book for Sally Rooney’s characters and how arrogant and holier-than-thou they were. To me that was unrealistic and absurd.
Anyways, back to the point of the novel being a dream-like state, it had exactly what I wanted by reading this I felt like I was reminiscing a foggy memory of a lost summer’s day.
Another note of complaint from others I’d like to reflect on is that the book has no plot. I felt this for 99% of contemporary novels, as they surrounding such of the humdrum life. In The Fold is all down to symbolism to, and it’s fun for its openness to interpretation of it! In this case, for myself, it was the transformation and evolution of a family one admires and the vision shattered years to come.
So yes it’s funny to see now people aren’t so blind to contemporary genres misgivings, it’s my turn to favour it. At the very least with this I know what to expect what the story is trying to tell. And to say it in beautiful sentences as oppose to the boring stagnant pieces I often see within the genre.
All in all it was a nice, calming book, an equivalent to picking up a cosy game rather than a FPS when you want to unwind. No true spectacle happens and why I cannot give it more stars than I have given but you’re left with lots of contemplation and all sorts of emotions that keeps you turning the page for more.
My mind is buzzing with Rachel Cusk’s wistful words, I don’t know where to begin so I apologise for my mind’s vomit as it spews haphazardly.
In The Fold is a wondrous thing, I think it’s the magic of Cusk’s words that sweeps you into this dreamlike status. There’s an odd but delightful sense to this book. I’ve noted how many people in other reviews have remarked the absurdity of the conversations that take place within this novel, how unrealistic they are. I agree but it didn’t sway it, I think it shouldn’t be taken for face value, I see it as conversations that happen in dreams, everything seems ordinary and day-to-day but there’s something off still. Or even how the rich speak, how they feel degrees different to us with every aspect to their lives including what troubles them in their day.
On a more personal note and opinion, on the subject of how characters speak in contemporary novels, I felt the same complaints people had for this book for Sally Rooney’s characters and how arrogant and holier-than-thou they were. To me that was unrealistic and absurd.
Anyways, back to the point of the novel being a dream-like state, it had exactly what I wanted by reading this I felt like I was reminiscing a foggy memory of a lost summer’s day.
Another note of complaint from others I’d like to reflect on is that the book has no plot. I felt this for 99% of contemporary novels, as they surrounding such of the humdrum life. In The Fold is all down to symbolism to, and it’s fun for its openness to interpretation of it! In this case, for myself, it was the transformation and evolution of a family one admires and the vision shattered years to come.
So yes it’s funny to see now people aren’t so blind to contemporary genres misgivings, it’s my turn to favour it. At the very least with this I know what to expect what the story is trying to tell. And to say it in beautiful sentences as oppose to the boring stagnant pieces I often see within the genre.
All in all it was a nice, calming book, an equivalent to picking up a cosy game rather than a FPS when you want to unwind. No true spectacle happens and why I cannot give it more stars than I have given but you’re left with lots of contemplation and all sorts of emotions that keeps you turning the page for more.
August 2, 2011
This was a bit like a temperamental old car - started off a bit jerky and I wasn't at all sure I was going to be able to make the journey, but once it got up to speed, it was as smooth as anything and I fairly sped along through some great scenery. It's a good idea to keep a dictionary close at hand - any author who makes free with the word 'contemporaneous' on the very first page is serving fair warning on the reader. And there are some unbelievably long and complicated sentences lurking in the early chapters, like brambles snaking through the undergrowth ready to trip the unwary speed-reader. To read this story out loud I swear you would need an extra lung.
Once I got beyond the first thirty or so pages, it became clear that this is an author with an impressive grip on characterisation, and a lot of very astute points to make (albeit not very succinctly). It was a shame that books are expected to have a central 'message', because in trying to make its point, this book occasionally strayed away from the startlingly brilliant dialogue and character portrayal into forced psychobabble. I'm thinking particularly of Michael's encounter late on with his wife and her bitchy friend which started off excellent but degenerated.
I thought Michael came across a bit asexual, which often happens when an author chooses a first person narrator of the opposite sex to tell a story. On the other hand I thought this gave her an excellent opportunity to point out the bizarre things some women do and say. This occurs again and again in this book and I thought the author handled it beautifully. The way the character Lisa deals with children interrupting her conversations with other adults was deserving of four stars all on its own!
Once I got beyond the first thirty or so pages, it became clear that this is an author with an impressive grip on characterisation, and a lot of very astute points to make (albeit not very succinctly). It was a shame that books are expected to have a central 'message', because in trying to make its point, this book occasionally strayed away from the startlingly brilliant dialogue and character portrayal into forced psychobabble. I'm thinking particularly of Michael's encounter late on with his wife and her bitchy friend which started off excellent but degenerated.
I thought Michael came across a bit asexual, which often happens when an author chooses a first person narrator of the opposite sex to tell a story. On the other hand I thought this gave her an excellent opportunity to point out the bizarre things some women do and say. This occurs again and again in this book and I thought the author handled it beautifully. The way the character Lisa deals with children interrupting her conversations with other adults was deserving of four stars all on its own!
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October 27, 2022bizarre that this book has so many poor reviews. It's very clever and often made me laugh out loud. I love the design of the whole thing, it's as tight as a well-constructed stage play. The most intriguing thing to me is that a woman wrote this book, told from the point of view of a very reasonable-seeming male narrator who is extremely reluctant to admit to himself that his wife is overemotional and erratic...totally weird and enjoyable
March 17, 2013
Court roman atypique où rencontres de hasard, unions, amitiés et amours semblent orchestrés
par un maestro qui s'amuse avec tout ce que l'existence comporte de plus fortuit.
Où l'on constate que chaque destin, chaque personne est cubique; on n'en voit jamais la totalité!
Le principal protagoniste avance à tâtons pour redonner un sens à sa vie;
sa femme lui échappe, refuse la maternité, son fils l'inquiète...
Il retourne à Egypt farm, lieu mythique de son passé d'étudiant où il a jadis rencontré la famille de son
compagnon de chambre à l'université lors d'une fête.
Se superposent alors la famille de cet ami, telle que gravée dans sa mémoire,
à la famille telle que devenue, mais aussi telle qu'en elle-même, sans artifice, dépouillée de ses oripeaux.
Car la vérité éclate à Egypt farm et rien n'est plus ce qu'il semble avoir été...
par un maestro qui s'amuse avec tout ce que l'existence comporte de plus fortuit.
Où l'on constate que chaque destin, chaque personne est cubique; on n'en voit jamais la totalité!
Le principal protagoniste avance à tâtons pour redonner un sens à sa vie;
sa femme lui échappe, refuse la maternité, son fils l'inquiète...
Il retourne à Egypt farm, lieu mythique de son passé d'étudiant où il a jadis rencontré la famille de son
compagnon de chambre à l'université lors d'une fête.
Se superposent alors la famille de cet ami, telle que gravée dans sa mémoire,
à la famille telle que devenue, mais aussi telle qu'en elle-même, sans artifice, dépouillée de ses oripeaux.
Car la vérité éclate à Egypt farm et rien n'est plus ce qu'il semble avoir été...
April 18, 2017
Well I managed to finish it! A young university student(Michael)is invited to his friend`s sister`s eighteenth birthday party, to be held on their farm called Egypt. The family are all a bit odd, and the party which never seems to start is suddenly over. Years later the Michael contacts his friend again and ends up taking his young son down to the farm to help with the lambing.Here he discovers that most of the family are really unpleasant. I found this book very wearisome, introspective and often pretenscious. It is billed as a black comedy, in my view it misses being either. Having said that there are some wonderful observations and some beautiful passages which help.
March 26, 2017
If only the author possessed greater discipline, this book would not be so awash in similes, bloated reflections, tiresome characterizations of houses and rooms. But the biggest of these problems is Cusk's unfortunate impulse to append a clause beginning with "as though" to every third paragraph. It's as though she's being paid by the metaphor.
August 11, 2013
I loved how she captured the personalities of houses and how place can suck zest out of you; but my god, some of her sentences are simply tortuous.
December 31, 2022
I really like Rachel Cusk. I devoured the trilogy of "Outline," "Transit," and "Kudos." This was my first foray outside of those autofictions. While "In the Fold" doesn't reach the sublime heights of her best work, it's still an excellent novel. Cusk's dry as a desert observations about wealth, class and especially the foibles of crumbling relationships are just as scathing as they are elsewhere. Michael visits Egypt Hill, the estate of his more privileged college roommate, then years later returns with his young son. The visit is an escape from his wife, their literal crumbling townhouse, and the feeling that Egypt Hill represents something more idyllic in life. Instead, the characters he remembers from his first visit present a much more degraded version of his memories.
--
As a side note, I adored Cusk's descriptions of bland suburbia such as this one:
"There were perhaps a hundred houses there, all like Adam's.
In spite of the exertions of the tarmac, which wound and circled graciously amid the properties as though to give the impression that each was distinct and difficult to find, the development had a somewhat regimental appearance. When you glimpsed it from the town, its roofs and top-floor windows resembled the impassive heads of an invading army coming over the hill. Once there, however, a pleasant, almost dreamlike atmosphere prevailed. It was an atmosphere that arose from the expectation that absolutely nothing untoward was going to occur. This expectation was well founded, in that as far as I could see, none of the factors- natural or man-made-that might constitute, or even precipitate, an event were present. There were no shops or strangers or meeting places, no through traffic or litter or noise. Even the sea, which was less than half a mile away on the other side of a small rise, was soundless, invisible and without odor. There were merely people, curiously motiveless in their identical red-brick houses, each with their fenced rectangle of grass that was indistinguishable from the grass outside the fence. I hadn't been there long before I noticed the habit they had of coming out of their houses and standing beneath the wadded gray sky, looking around. They would look around for a while and then they would go back in again."
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As a side note, I adored Cusk's descriptions of bland suburbia such as this one:
"There were perhaps a hundred houses there, all like Adam's.
In spite of the exertions of the tarmac, which wound and circled graciously amid the properties as though to give the impression that each was distinct and difficult to find, the development had a somewhat regimental appearance. When you glimpsed it from the town, its roofs and top-floor windows resembled the impassive heads of an invading army coming over the hill. Once there, however, a pleasant, almost dreamlike atmosphere prevailed. It was an atmosphere that arose from the expectation that absolutely nothing untoward was going to occur. This expectation was well founded, in that as far as I could see, none of the factors- natural or man-made-that might constitute, or even precipitate, an event were present. There were no shops or strangers or meeting places, no through traffic or litter or noise. Even the sea, which was less than half a mile away on the other side of a small rise, was soundless, invisible and without odor. There were merely people, curiously motiveless in their identical red-brick houses, each with their fenced rectangle of grass that was indistinguishable from the grass outside the fence. I hadn't been there long before I noticed the habit they had of coming out of their houses and standing beneath the wadded gray sky, looking around. They would look around for a while and then they would go back in again."
December 20, 2024
Classic early/mid period Cusk. The first half is terrifically funny and has all the Cusk middle-class witticism and ironic musings. The second half is so boring and goes nowhere. With Cusk I’m never 100% certain if she absolutely hates men or hates men and women. It’s remarkable to me how much more interesting and alive her writing is post Outline. The early work is filled with this hatred of society that comes across as nasty and repetitive but the later work is inspiring and uses that hatred to shine through her form. Cusk is at her best when she’s being experimental.
December 6, 2024
I did find this quite hard to read for long periods of time - not due to a lack of immersion, but the relentlessness of the language pushed me back like tides. I wonder how much more I would have enjoyed it if it had been set over the course of 24-48 hours; the insular nature of the novel certainly would have benefitted from being driven further. Those last 50 or so pages were truly incredible and horrifically stressful - I’m not feeling too good now. Excited to read more by her!
March 5, 2023
really, really interesting to read all this old Cusk right next to each other. this one is quite funny!
July 29, 2024
greškom uzela da čitam jer sam je pomešala sa drugom knjigom... interesting nonetheless
December 17, 2024
Rachel Cusk is #1 for writing about women who don’t care so much about their own children and I kind of love her for that.
January 8, 2019
"There were perhaps a hundred houses there, all like Adam's. In spite of the exertions of the tarmac, which wound and circled graciously amid the properties as though to give the impression that each was distinct and difficult to find, the development had a somewhat regimental appearance. When you glimpsed it from the town, its roofs and top-floor windows resembled the impassive heads of an invading army coming over the hill. Once there, however, a pleasant, almost dreamlike atmosphere prevailed. It was an atmosphere that arose from the expectation that absolutely nothing untward was going to occur" (94).
"The bottles and jars of every conceivable size and shape suggested a world suspended partway between medicine and magic. I caught a glimpse of something called 'breast-firming cream.' I tried to imagine the orgy of self-improvement that routinely occurred here" (97).
"She smiled rather rakishly, with one side of her mouth. THe other side reamined downturned, as though half of her were perpetually reminding the other half of occasions on which an optimistic approach to things had not paid off" (121).
"Half a mile down the road, a man was driving a mud-splattered four-wheel motorbike along the verge with two scrappy dogs twisting around him, one on either side, like a pair of apostrophes" (134).
"The bottles and jars of every conceivable size and shape suggested a world suspended partway between medicine and magic. I caught a glimpse of something called 'breast-firming cream.' I tried to imagine the orgy of self-improvement that routinely occurred here" (97).
"She smiled rather rakishly, with one side of her mouth. THe other side reamined downturned, as though half of her were perpetually reminding the other half of occasions on which an optimistic approach to things had not paid off" (121).
"Half a mile down the road, a man was driving a mud-splattered four-wheel motorbike along the verge with two scrappy dogs twisting around him, one on either side, like a pair of apostrophes" (134).
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