COVENTRY : essays

The essays, literary reflections, and introductions collected together in Rachel Cusk’s Coventry share an uncluttered professionalism, casual precision, and a kind of blindness. As Cusk is famously (or infamously) a public writer, having written at length about her own life and, latterly, having

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taken up the auto-fiction mantel, these prose pieces reflect a certain interstitial jobbing - the prose one writes between the big works, to a brief, with remuneration agreed in advance. In short, Cusk as professional writer.

The first grouping in the set, under the heading “Coventry”, are by far the most significant, comprising lengthy essays on metaphor, rudeness, motherhood, divorce, and feminism, all with an eye to their relationship to narrative. “Coventry” as the essay of that title explains, is said to be the place a young girl is “sent” when her peers shun her. It’s a common enough experience. But Cusk receives this punishment also from her parents, especially her mother, who is portrayed in a very cold light. And at some point she begins to enjoy life in Coventry. Exclusion becomes seclusion. Punishment becomes accomplishment. Like the individual sentenced to solitary confinement who happily contemplates finally being able to get a little time to himself. This awkward accommodation with circumstance becomes almost a theme for Cusk as she attempts to reconcile herself to her role as a mother, her (failed) relationship with her spouse, and even the lesser niceties of interpersonal interaction, the breakdown of which is perceived as rudeness.

Cusk’s is at once a penetrating gaze and at the same time characteristically askew. You can’t help wondering about her as a writer. Some writers you like to imagine coming over for dinner; Cusk not so much. This despite your absolute conviction that she is an important writer.

The short section of this collection — some literary reflections and introductions for republished novels by other authors — constitute mostly filler. But pleasant filler. She writes a fine overview and deftly points out some of the key features of individual books, sometimes with a glancing sharp observation about the author. It’s not surprising, I think, to find that fine writers are also fine readers of literature; indeed the latter may be a prerequisite for the former.

In all, this is a collection well worth reading. It will be admired without, perhaps, being loved.

Recommended.

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