Bookworm

Rachel Cusk: “Second Place”

Rachel Cusk’s “Second Place” wants to render the sensations and apprehensions of living that are pretty much beyond language.

By Michael Silverblatt • May 6, 2021 • 28m Listen

Central to Rachel Cusk’s new book, “Second Place," is the war between the male and the female. The narrative takes place in a marsh—a landscape of mystery and constant change. Cusk says she wanted to create fields of being, perceiving and feeling that don’t really exist in the normal economics of writing; she wanted to render the sensations and apprehensions of living that are pretty much beyond language. And she thought of Mabel Dodge Luhan’s book “Lorenzo in Taos” as an abandoned house she could renovate.

Excerpt from “Second Place” by Rachel Cusk

I once told you, Jeffers, about the time I met the devil on a train leaving Paris, and about how after that meeting the evil that usually lies undisturbed beneath the surface of things rose up and disgorged itself over every part of life. It was like a contamination, Jeffers: it got into everything and turned it bad. I don’t think I realised how many parts of life there were, until each one of them began to release its capacity for badness. I know you’ve always known about such things, and have written about them, even when others didn’t want to hear and found it tiresome to dwell on what was wicked and wrong. Nonetheless you carried on, building a shelter for people to use when things went wrong for them too. And go wrong they always do!