Second Place

 By Rachel Cusk

This writer is acclaimed for a trilogy she wrote a few years back.  I wasn't enamoured with those books but thought I would try this one.  I wasn't impressed with this either, nor was a reviewer at The Guardian.

The story is written as the narrator M, recounts to someone named Jeffers (we never find out who this is) her misadventures in inviting an artist to stay at a guest house on her and her husband's property.

The book starts out by saying the woman met the devil on a train.  Then she goes on to talk about how she feels invisible, un-noticed.  One day in a funk she went out walking in London and stumbled upon an art exhibit.  She became enamoured with the artist, feeling he would save her somehow.

Years later she is married, has a grown daughter.  She and her husband have a guest house on their property that they make available to artists.  She writes to the artist she was enamoured with and invites him to come to stay.  He says he will but then doesn't show saying he got a better offer, a tropical island.  She is devastated at this news.

Eventually the artist does show up with an attractive young woman in tow.  The woman is upset by this.  She tries to get the artists attention but he ignores her or is rude to her.  He wants to paint others but not her.  When he paints her husband he paints him as a tiny figure on a big canvas.  How disparaging!  Eventually the artist paints a garish garden of Eden scene on the wall of the guest house featuring a very unflattering image of the woman.  She is devastated by her dreams of him saving her having failed and his cruelty to her.

He eventually leaves and dies poverty stricken and alone in Paris.  His last paintings re-establish his fame in the art community.

This was a very depressing, boring book.  I don't understand why the woman had so little self esteem.  She seemed to have a loving supportive husband who put up with her weird personality.  Apparently the book was sparked by a book by another author.

Quote in the book, Sophocles said "how dreadful knowledge of the truth is, when the truth can't help you."

I don't think I will bother with any more Rachel Cusk books.