Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation

Author(s): Rachel Cusk

Biography & Memoir

In 2003, Rachel Cusk published A Life's Work, her provocative and startlingly funny memoir of the cataclysm of motherhood, and launched debates that continue to this day. Now, in her most relevant work yet, Cusk offers an intimate exploration of divorce and its tremendous impact on the lives of women--and discovers opportunity as well as pain.


An unflinching chronicle of the upheaval of her own recent separation, Aftermath is also a vivid study of divorce's complex place in our society. With candor as fearless as it is affecting, Rachel Cusk maps a transformative chapter of her life with wit and acuity, and in a way that will help us understand our own.

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Written in the months after Rachel Cusk's divorce, Aftermath is a masterly work charting the largely unwritten journey back to order from the chaos that is left when a family breaks apart.

Praise for "Aftermath"[I] admire Cusk . . . for the gravity and ruthlessness of her self-examination. Much that is written these days about what are regretfully called 'relationships' feels overly processed, with emotions filtered bloodlessly through irony, or diverted into easy sentimentality. Cusk's book, on the other hand, is emotionally raw and deeply uncomfortable-making, while also being finely turned as a literary artifact. (Cusk can nail a simile like Gabby Douglas can execute a backflip). Cusk, admirably enough, is not afraid to take herself seriously." --Rebecca Mead, "The New Yorker
""[A] brilliant new memoir . . . As slim and revealing as a microscope slide."--Lisa Shea, "Elle
""Compelling . . . Affecting . . . [A] bravely unsympathetic memoir of marital dissolution . . . A restlessly erudite portrait of post-marital strife. The book's satisfactions lie in its cold-eyed probing of the "aftermath," which, as she tells us, is a second sowing after the initial harvest. And in its vivid use of image and metaphor . . . This book is a solace to anybody who has dwelt in post-familial wastes." --Liza Mundy, "San Francisco Chronicle" "Thrilling . . . There are riches buried like gold in the bitter picture she describes . . . An enormously talented writer." --Nan Goldberg, "The Boston Globe "striking . . . Startling . . . Unflinching . . . Bold, gripping, original and occasionally darkly funny." --"Kirkus Reviews "(starred review) "I read "A Life's Work" shortly after I, too, had had a child, and doing so was like finally letting go of a breath I had held for a year. Ostentatiously smart, fearless, the author displayed what almost seemed a compulsion to yank the threads of that impossibly pretty doily tatted by convention around motherhood . . . Her memoir of divorce displays the same ferocity of intellect, humor, and occasional bad mood . . .

Rachel Cusk was born in 1967 and is the author of: Saving Agnes, which won the Whitbread First Novel Award, The Temporary, The Country Life - won a Somerset Maugham Award, The Lucky Ones - shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award, In the Fold and Arlington Park - was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and The Bradshaw Variations. Her non-fiction books are A Life's Work and The Last Supper. In 2003 she was chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young Novelists.

General Fields

  • : 9780571277667
  • : Faber & Faber, Limited
  • : Faber & Faber, Limited
  • : 0.132
  • : January 2013
  • : 198mm X 126mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : March 2013
  • : January 2021
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Rachel Cusk
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
  • : English
  • : 823/.914 B
  • : 160