The Lucky Ones (Hardcover)

'Cusk is a highly interesting, original writer and, more unusually, she is a joy to read.' Helen Dunmore 'Goodness she can write. It takes the breath away.' Claudia FitzHerbert, Daily Telegraph Praise for The Lucky Ones: 'The Lucky Ones has a theme equal to its author's wit, intelligence and genius for observation. This novel is not a particularly comfortable place to be, partly because it's so much like life and partly because Rachel Cusk is brilliant at depicting unattractive characters. But anyone who has ever lived in a family will relish it.' Cressida Connolly, Daily Telegraph 'Her prose is measured and poised. She share's Virginia Woolf's interest in making art out of the minutiae of women's inner monologues.' Stephanie Merritt, Observer Praise for The Country Life: "In this, her third novel, Rachel Cusk writes with the fastidiousness and delightful grace we have come to expect... Stella is a splendidly memorable creation." Sue Gaisford, Independent on Sunday "This book is a delight... The Country Life is remarkable for two things; its humour and its menace... Its mixture of P.G.Wodehouse, Cold Comfort Farm and Jane Austen is a pleasure to read" Tibor Fischer, Sunday Express "I was addicted. The detail is breathtaking and Cusk's descriptions of a heatwave in the countryside almost had me dripping sweat and scratching the nettle stings. It is also hysterically funny." Lisa Jewell

Authors sometimes begin their books with a quote from a better-known writer, perhaps hoping to invite some kind comparison with reviewers. Often this conceit (in both senses) is misguided, serving only to point up the differences between the illustrious and the ordinary. Here, Cusk has chosen a quote by Katherine Mansfield, and it must be said that if there were ever a young British writer capable of holding a torch to Mansfield, it would be Cusk. Two of her three previous novels have won awards and The Lucky Ones, structured as a series of interlinked and overlapping short stories, is well up to standard, with the beautifully observed vignettes of everyday life and the precision of language that are Cusk's hallmarks. The book begins with a birth, traumatic and unwelcome. The birth in question is an event to be delayed as soon as possible because the young mother, in prison for a murder she did not commit, knows that the moment the baby is born and ceases to be part of her they will be separated. The campaigning lawyer who was seeking to win her a place in an oversubscribed mother-and-baby unit has become ill, and the child will now be placed with foster parents. This ambivalence over birth and motherhood continues the theme, of course, of the author's recent non-fiction book, A Life's Work, which dealt with her own feelings about becoming a mother for the first time. Babies and motherhood are recurring themes through the rest of the stories: an overbearing mother has mixed feelings about her bohemian daughter's attitude to her baby; a young father leaves his wife and young child to go skiing with friends; the campaigning lawyer in the background of the first story moves to the country with his wife, a newspaper columnist, and she strikes up an unusual friendship with a local woman. Unlike the many writers who stick to a familiar setting, Rachel Cusk seems equally sensitive to the realities of life on a sink estate to those of an impoverished middle-class mother in an abusive relationship, trying to keep up appearances to her village neighbours, and her sympathetic portraits mean that you really care what happens to her finely drawn characters. (Kirkus UK)

'Cusk's is a unique voice ... she has a way of making you care about her characters ... an intelligent read.'