Outline cover art

Outline

Outline, Book 1

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Outline

By: Rachel Cusk
Narrated by: Kristin Scott Thomas
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About this listen

Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her student in storytelling exercises. She meets other writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her seatmate from the place. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves, their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face great a great loss.

Outline is the first book in a short and yet epic cycle - a masterful trilogy which will be remembered as one of the most significant achievements of our times.

'Outline succeeds powerfully. Among other things, it gets a great variety of human beings down on the page with both immediacy and depth; an elemental pleasure that makes the book as gripping to read as a thriller... A stellar accomplishment.' James Lasdun, Guardian

©2020 Rachel Cusk (P)2020 Faber & Faber Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

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Outline contains a lot of musings on the craft of writing and for that, I found it an inspiring and thoughtful, as well as thought-provoking read. I loved the small stories within the story (a writer teaching a writing class was the perfect device for delivering these), that felt a bit like actual writing exercises and made me realize that any experience can become a story, no matter how seemingly trivial. I listened to it during my summer staycation and it was afforded me the quiet I was craving, to go around in my own thoughts, weeding the garden or drinking a glass of wine in the greenhouse while hanging out with my favorite cat. It also made me want to return to my neglected novel project. The narrator was actress Kirsten Scott Thomas and she clearly had to redo some parts from inside a barrel and then whoever had to edit it didn’t put it back together very skillfully, as the sound levels and audio quality were all over the place in spots. But overall, a quiet, gentle musing on the craft of writing.

Musings on the craft of writing

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A beautiful narrative, beautifully read, However it was spoiled by intermittently very poor recording quality that was at times echoey and fuzzy. Re-recording needed.

Great book. Uneven and echoey recording quality.

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I quite liked this book and the conversations narrated were highly intriguing! As a Greek myself however, I could not help but cringe a little bit at the bizarre accent the narrator put on when pretending to be a Greek character.

Great book

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I have read this book before in its physical format. The voice of Kristin Scott Thomas added another layer of understanding. Looking forward to listening to the other two books of the trilogy.

Joyful and unforgettable

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I was intrigued by reviews of this that it deals with character in novel ways. It’s an interesting read but almost impossible to know quite how it’s supposed to work because of the utterly terrible performance.

Good novel. Dire performance.

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