Coventry

"First-rate, marked by candor and seriousness . . . [Cusk] is a poet of split feelings. Her inquisitive intelligence is the rebar that, inside the concrete, holds the edifice upright."—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"[Cusk's voice is] imbued with an authority that is all the more powerful because it is diffuse and flexible, aware of its limited perspective and willing to be measured against those of others . . . Cusk, like the best artists, has renovated her work from its deepest interior—the self—transforming her private crises into an expansive aesthetic vision."—Meaghan O'Gieblyn, The New York Times Book Review

"Cusk’s unsparing ability to see links between her own experience and broader literary and historical perspectives has always elevated her personal writing above mere memoir, and this collection cements her reputation as one of the most fierce and elegant chroniclers of how we live now."—Stephanie Merritt, The Guardian

“The essays [in Coventry] chip away at Cusk’s preoccupations—the tenuous agreements of civility, the tension between family life and the creative process, the making of a home—from multiple angles in order to chisel towards some sort of truth . . . As the language in her work becomes more streamlined, Cusk’s voice in Coventry resonates loud and clear.”—Mia Levitin, Financial Times

“Fiercely intelligent, with enviable prose that is at once luminous and precise . . . If residing in ‘Coventry’ has allowed [Cusk] to write with such devastating complexity, I hope she stays there.”—Kathryn Maris, New Statesman

"Impressive and wonderful. Rachel Cusk sees the truth where the rest of us can only make out shadows. Coventry is Cusk's theory of forms."—Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse

"Opening up the deep crevices of everyday life's paradoxes, myths, and more, Cusk pulls apart the stories we tell to reflect on the mess underneath."—Maggie Taft, Booklist (starred review)

"Readers of the author's first-person fiction will be pleased with the acutely observant narrative voice that characterizes these introspective meditations on family, motherhood, marriage, and community . . . An eloquent and engrossing selection of nonfiction writing that will enhance Cusk's stature in contemporary literature."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Cusk turns her perceptive gaze and distinctive voice to a variety of topics in her arresting first essay collection."—Publishers Weekly