This novel is a fantastically successful parody of a Eighteenth Century novel in which a young woman encounters all sorts of terrors in her first solo foray into the wilds of the country in Sussex. I had the advantage of listening to this novel, brilliantly read by Jenny Sterlin, produced by Recorded Books, but I like to think I would have picked up on the melodrama even if I’d read it.
As an undergraduate reading 18thC literature, I was tasked in one demanding class to “write an paper in the style” of one of the authors we studied that term. This novel by Cusk would be a brilliant fulfillment of that requirement. One would swear one were reading a modern Gothic romance in the style of our very earliest novels like Weiland; or The Transformation by Charles Brockton Brown, written in 1798 or Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein.
All the intrigue, drama, and fear of a young woman’s fancy are amply on display: creaking floorboards, the dangers of walking in the country on public footpaths, leering oversexed male acquaintances, dwarfish figures whose intent, whether good or bad, is undetermined. Stella is simply overtaken with every possible obstacle to living well in Sussex at Franchise Farm, a large, ancient, impressive farming estate owned in perpetuity by the Maddens. Stella has been engaged to be a companion to the Matthew Madden, a teenaged handicapped scion of the family.
Cusk works over our sympathies in this novel so that every couple pages we are changing allegiances with the characters. The story has a darker heart than we’re prepared for by all the ridiculous drama of Stella’s first days at Franchise Farm, but this is meant to be discovered after several hours with the characters, so i won’t reveal it here. Suffice it to say that the overblown prose and extraordinary dilemmas faced by our narrator contrast in a comic way with the utter ordinariness of the rest of the characters, all of whom find themselves watching Stella with some degree of alarm and surprise as she settles in.
I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a novel as much, it being so completely unexpected, truly hilarious and absurd, with our heroine, through no intent of her own, ending up several days completely blotto on stolen vodka. The teenaged charge Matthew bears some responsibility for taking advantage of his much-older companion, never having seen someone with as little control or suitability for her position as the lovely Stella. As his mother says volubly, “He’s not retarded, Stella, he’s just disabled.” And very clever and interested he is, too, in all that goes on around him. For once he sees someone nearly as helpless as he is, and he rises to the challenge.
I am particularly thrilled to read a novel that describes—and asks us to imagine—what life might actually be like for someone disabled. The group meetings Matthew must attend outside of his school hours are truly horrifying—all authoritarian control and insistence on talking about one’s feelings. Matthew is often overlooked and not appreciated for what he can do well.
Every novel I have read by Cusk is very different from its predecessors but equally funny. Her work is not losing its charm, no matter that I have read nearly all her oeuvre at once. I am even more convinced of my earlier assessment—certainly that Cusk is my favorite living author, but also that she is one of the greats working today. She is especially relevant in a world in which sexual relations have entered the stage of “let’s put it all on the table, dear.”
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My reviews of Cusk's other books:
Saving Agnes, 1993
The Temporary, 1995 (not reviewed yet)
The Country Life, 1997
A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, 2002
The Lucky Ones, 2003
In the Fold, 2005
Arlington Park, 2006
The Bradshaw Variations, 2009
The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy, 2009
Aftermath: On Marriage & Separation, 2012
Outline, 2014
Medea, 2015
Transit, 2016
Kudos, 2018
Coventry: Essays, 2019
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