Arlington Park (edició 2007)

Beautifully written in parts but I felt the short story-like structure jumping from character to character didn't really work as well as a more longer-form narrative would have done. Although many of the characters do re-appear later in the book, I found that as some level of interest and character insight was being reached the chapter would come to a close and focus on someone different.

Need to take a break from reading books about white, middle class people too. Felt like their suburban lives was too much of an easy target here for Cusk, and didn't ever really reach the heights of her superlative Outline trilogy. ( )

This is very well written, but somewhat depressing and bleak. Very well described scenes from a suburban life of disappointment. ( )

Very well written. I got some of the characters confused, but it didn't matter. The chapter in the park could be its own short story, it's so perfectly described. ( )

Desperate Housewives meets Under Milk Wood
By sally tarbox on 13 Jun. 2012
Format: Paperback
The start to this novel is brilliantly evocative describing the rain over a night time city: 'In their sleep they heard it, people lying in their beds: the thunderous noise of the water...it made them feel somehow observed, as if a dark audience had assembled outside and were looking in through the windows, clapping their hands.'
And then Cusk takes us through a day in the life of this suburb through the eyes of various middle-class young mums; the snapshots of each show an unremitting dissatisfaction with their husbands and children and their place in a man's world.
I LOVED Cusk's prose but started to get fed up with these moany privileged women! ( )

This is more a series of interconnected short stories than a novel, which was a bit of a disappointment for me. This format means there's a tendency to not really develop each character or situation as well as might be done in a full-length work. Nonetheless, this is pretty good writing, I reckon. It's my first dose of Rachel Cusk and I will look for more of her work. ( )