Trux’s Reviews > Life of M > Status Update

There’s a simple maturity & ease in the flow of this Cusk that makes some overworked hyper-intellectual elements in books like Parade more meditative, graceful, easily-coherent & accessible. <3

I think The Writer is projecting her own masking onto M, imagining moving through the world with different tools (the beautiful smile, next-level wealth) for & facility at pretending … not having ever had the choice.

I can see this becoming a companion in my reading life to Moshfegh’s Year of R&R, & sensible to read around 9/11.

4 sentences in and I’ve already decided this little book is going to be perfect, and I’m on the side of Rachel Cusk and of fiction, and that of all the hideous things Natalie Portman has been subjected to over the course of her career, this could not possibly hold enough of a fucked-up candle to any of them, and the critics can all go fuck themselves & stick with reading the backs of shampoo bottles.