Book Review: Transit by Rachel Cusk

CANADIAN-born Rachel Cusk’s last novel, Outline, was shortlisted for a slew of awards, including the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction — and her follow-up, Transit, will undoubtedly draw similar acclaim.

It’s again narrated by Cusk’s watchful writer Faye, who, following the breakdown of her marriage, has moved to London with her two sons.

Her life, much like our own, unfolds in a series of interactions with others — an ex-boyfriend on the school run, the “evil” neighbours in the flat below, the Polish workmen who are gutting her new home, two other writers speaking alongside her at a book festival, the students in her writing class, and finally, her Cotswolds-based cousin, who has swapped one life for another.