Book Club Guide

Outline

by Rachel Cusk · 2014 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The self defined by its absence — the narrator you can only see around the edges
Other people's stories as the material of self-knowledge
The novel as a form that can hold the unsayable through indirection

About this book

A novelist travels to Athens to teach a writing course and has a series of conversations — on the plane, on a boat, at dinner, in workshops — which slowly reveal the outline of her own character through what others choose to tell her. Cusk's novel invented a form: a narrator defined entirely by absence, and by the stories of others that pour into that absence.

Published in 2014, Outline is the first volume of Cusk's Outline trilogy. It was written after her controversial memoir Aftermath caused a public response that made autobiography impossible for her — leading her to invent a form that could hold her experience while insisting on its fictionality.

Discussion questions

The narrator Faye rarely speaks directly about her own life. Everything is told through what others say to her. What is Cusk saying through this formal choice — about the self, about autobiography, about fiction?
The novel was described as experimental but reads very smoothly. How does Cusk make a radically unusual form feel natural — and when, if ever, does the indirection become a limitation?
The conversations are all with strangers who open up instantly and tell Faye things that might be indiscreet. What does Cusk achieve by staging intimacy in this way — between strangers on planes, at dinners?
The Outline trilogy (Outline, Transit, Kudos) was written after Cusk published a controversial memoir about her divorce. How does knowing this biographical context change how you read the formal choices?
Outline has been called the most influential novel of the last decade. What specifically has it influenced — and does it represent a new way of doing what fiction has always done?