Cusk’s prose matches the frictionless flight so effortless you believe every line has been lifted straight from her experience. If ever there’s harmony between character and writer, this is it. The narrator speaks with her seatmate, ostensibly about his life, but what comes is a litany of hard truths. Rachel Cusk’s Outline: A Novel (FSG, 2015) is one of these books and how she does it is singular. Though we may disagree on the definitions of 1) and 2), we can’t argue that a novel rarely accomplishes both. The best part of reading Light Years in your mid-twenties is that it feels like a crash course in life: you inherit the weight of a full life lived without having done the living. He took other recommendations to mixed results, and throughout the hits and misses I now believe I can clarify his ideal book’s necessary traits: 1) absolute realism and 2) sustained and relentless passages of insight. Judging by his taste, I suggested James Salter’s Light Years - a success. He was then a third-year medical student, and couldn’t invest time in finding one. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.Ī year ago, a friend told me he doubted that he’d ever read a meaningful novel.
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