Reading for the Craft Book Club with Pedro & Swati

Writing is an “apprenticeship to what can never fully be mastered”, says the Pulitzer-winning poet Carl Phillips. Join us as we delve into the mysteries of the art of storytelling. In this workshop-adjacent book club, we will discuss everything from plot beats to perspective choices to sentence-level sonics of major literary works and small press gems, in an attempt to understand how specific authorial choices shape the experience and impact of a story. You do not have to be a writer to join us — just someone with a deep love for literature and endless curiosity about how a story gets told.

This month we’ll discuss Rachel Cusk’s irresistible novel of fame, power, beauty, and truth—and a blazing renovation of the form, Life of M.

“Life of M gathers all of Cusk’s signature themes, especially her frustration with character. Like Parade, the novel is sparse and mythic, composed of a series of hazily drawn impressions cut by acute portraits of urban malaise . . . Life of M also offers some of Cusk’s most beautiful passages in years on the fleetingness of our collective lives.”—Grace Byron, Dissent

“Cusk’s power lies in the authority of her sharp, spare prose, the glittering exactness of her sentences. She writes with crisp acuity about the frictionless (and therefore strangely lifeless) existence of the celebrity, the corrosive effect of fame on family relationships, the blend of fervent purity and crushing cynicism that delimits a person forged in the forcefields of power and pretence. At Cusk’s startling best, and there is a good deal of that here, her ideas land like punches or uncomfortable secrets muttered in our ears: it is a shock to realise that they are our secrets too . . . Life of M is powered by a formidable intelligence and shaped with exceptional technical skill . . . It is a book to admire enormously.”—Clare Clark, The Guardian

The movie star M is one of the most recognizable faces of our time. Her image is everywhere. It has been like that since she was a child.

With such fame, her life has the appearance of freedom: people are instantly obliging, spaces are altered to accommodate her, time can be rearranged. M may live in the same places as real people. She may meet her friends or collect her children from school or walk her dogs as they do. But it seems the rules of reality have melted away.

Now, a writer has decided to pay close attention to M’s life in the hope of understanding who she really is. It is hard not to feel ugly next to M, hard not to feel insignificant. But what truths—about the very experience of living—might this proximity allow the writer to briefly capture?

In this astonishing novel, Rachel Cusk hunts for these truths without ever swerving away into self-deception. Her pursuit leads us across olive groves and beaches, behind the smoked windows of limousines, and through beautiful cities considered the great masterpieces of civilization. And at every turn, Cusk contemplates the cost of this beauty—and what we might lose when we are hypnotized by it.

Life of M is a thrilling investigation of who we are, and who we pretend to be, at this late stage of modern life when we are mesmerized more than ever by the images we see everywhere. It cuts through a world of noise and spectacle to bring us an eerie music of immense power and beauty.

Contact Genay, at bookclubs@mcnallyjackson.com with any questions.