Think you know books? Try our new Book Trivia!

What readers think of Outline, plus links to write your own review.

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Outline by Rachel Cusk

Outline

A Novel

by Rachel Cusk
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 13, 2015, 256 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2016, 256 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

Page 1 of 1
There is 1 reader review for Outline
Order Reviews by:

Write your own review!

Cariola

A Fine COllection of Interwoven Stories
Outline begins when a woman on a plane bound for Athens is prodded into conversation by the man sitting next to her, who narrates the history of his failed marriages. We learn that the never-named woman, a writer, has been invited to teach a creative writing course; her Greek students will all write their short stories in English. Each of the nine subsequent chapters is also told as a conversation, and it's a bit of fun to look for the links between them ("tension" and failed marriages being just two of them). The connections between them indeed fall into the shape of an outline, the kind you made in elementary school, where each main idea cascades into a set of subtopics which, in turn, are broken into their parts. This is a novel where the connections between parts are more significant than the chain of events (which is, in fact, simply the narrator listening to other people's narratives). It's a risky experiment, but Cusk pulls it off quite well.

All of the narrators are a bit self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing, and some are more likable than others. I found most interesting the writing students' descriptions of their stories--all of them based on =memories--written in response to an assignment to write a story with an animal in it. As we watch the visiting author listening to these almost one-sided conversations, we learn much about her as well.

Overall, Outline is a clever, inventive, and finely written novel.
  • Page
  • 1

Beyond the Book:
  Made in Greece

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Tapestry of Time
by Kate Heartfield
Love, war, and the supernatural collide in this dazzling historical fantasy by international bestselling author Kate Heartfield.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
    by Liza Tully

    A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

Win This Book
Win These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas

"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author

Enter

Book
Trivia

  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

W the C A the M W P

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.