And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane. She meets other visiting writers for dinner. She leads her students in storytelling exercises. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. Rachel Cusk's Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Named a A New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Vogue, NPR, The Guardian, The Independent, Glamour, and The Globe and MailĬhosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of The New York Times One of The New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year. A Finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 'The 100 best books of the 21st century'. ^ 'Baileys Women's prize for Fiction announce 2015 shortlist'.'Outline by Rachel Cusk review – vignettes from a writing workshop'.

^ Garner, Dwight Sehgal, Parul Szalai, Jennifer (5 March 2018).^ 'Macmillan: Series: Outline Trilogy'.^ 'Outline | Rachel Cusk | Macmillan'.

Outline was voted the 34th best book since 2000 by The Guardian. It made the 2014 shortlist of the Goldsmiths Prize, the 2015 shortlist of the Folio Prize, and the 2015 shortlist of the Bailey Women's Prize for Fiction. Outline was named one of The New York Times Top Ten books of 2015. In every chapter, the writer meets people and engages in long conversations on topics such as love, fiction, marriage, and intimacy. The next day she meets with an Irish colleague from the writing school who also tells her his life story. On the plane, she meets an older Greek bachelor who tells her about his two failed marriages. It was chosen by The New York Times critics as one of the 15 remarkable books by women that are 'shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.' The New Yorker has called the novel 'autobiographical fiction.' Plot Īn English woman writer flies to Athens to teach a summer writing workshop. Outline is a novel by Rachel Cusk, the first in a trilogy known as The Outline trilogy, which also contains the novels Transit and Kudos. 2014 (United Kingdom), 2015 (United States)

Cusk trilogy