The final part of an unconventional trilogy, Cusk writes a ~2 chapter novel about an author traveling to Portugal (?) for a literary festival. Like “Outline” and “Transit,” the novel almost entirely focuses on conversations between Faye and others.
In the first and second parts, the focus was generally on finding oneself after a marital separation. Here the focus is on occupying the “in-between.” The narrator sits on the edge of popular and literary fiction where she is invited to literary festivals without seeming to get much attention from the highbrows and to interviews where she is seemingly the highbrow exception. Many of the characters are in the in-between as well mainly in their marriages (or lack of divorces) and careers (either successful without satisfaction or unable to launch). No one here is fully comfortable with a situation that was never what they had in mind and yet they carry on in their routines and endure some usual level or hardship and a few moments of joy.
Maybe Cusk’s greatest strength is that unbearable conversations feel unbearable, the oppressive heat feels oppressive, and the most plain people usually have the best stories to tell.
“Outline” is a breath of freedom (with all of its disappointments) after a difficult episode, “Transit” is the realization that life (with all its difficulties) goes continues on after situations change, and “Kudos” is the acceptance that we settle into roles that are somehow conventional and yet blur the lines of what is well defined.
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