The twin themes of Rachel Cusk’s latest novel are truth and fame. In fact it’s not quite accurate to call it a ‘novel’: there are two main characters, but there is no plot; and although you start to understand each woman, it’s through observation of their behaviour in a series of vignettes rather than a conventional story.
The titular ‘M’ is an actress of beauty and renown, reportedly based on Natalie Portman. Her friend, the unnamed narrator, wants to write her biography. ‘Would you just make it up?’ M suggests airily, giving us a notion of how fabrication is sewn into her life. The narrator, who (as in Cusk’s Outline trilogy) seems partly based on the author herself, feels battered by the ‘random violence of insignificance’ – from which her friend is protected by fame. She senses that she was unloved by her parents (Cusk wrote about her mother in Coventry); and let down by people she has loved (Cusk’s divorce book, Aftermath, was savage about her ex). She also feels as if she can’t be her true self with M.
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