Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation
By (Author) Rachel Cusk
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
1st July 2019
16th May 2019
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Gender studies: women and girls
Separation and divorce: advice and issues
823.914
Paperback
160
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 12mm
133g
In the winter of 2009, Rachel Cusk's marriage of ten years came to an end. In the months that followed, life as she had known it came apart, 'like a jigsaw dismantled into a heap of broken-edged pieces'.
Aftermath chronicles this perilous journey as the author redefines herself as a single woman and creates a new version of family life for her daughters. She discovers previously unknown strengths and freedoms but also finds herself suddenly vulnerable to outsiders, unwelcome advice, social displacement and the absence of a clear authority. The pressure to reconstruct a 'normal' life for her daughters competes with the sense that nothing feels normal at all.
Aftermath is a masterly work in which the author, at her most candid and rigorous, charts the largely unwritten journey back to order from the chaos that is left when a family breaks apart.
Rachel Cusk is the author of nine novels and three works of non-fiction, which have won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes. In 2015, Cusk's version of Medea was staged at the Almeida Theatre.