Customer Reviews

Lucky Ones

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rachel Cusk's The Lucky Ones is an excellent collection of interconnected stories. It's not a novel in the traditional sense of the word, really a group of well-written stories with characters in each story popping up in the others. All of the stories focus on the relationship between parents and children, exploring the nature of the desire for becoming a parent--is it something innate, something we all have? Are some better parents than others, or are they all bad in their own way? The writing here is wonderful--very enjoyable. A well-done collection that hangs together much more cohesively than most other interconnected story collections I have read.

I have read every one of Rachel Cusk's novels and they just get better. While I am carried along by her stories, I am also marveling at her command of language, how just one sentence can reveal a whole life. She understands how men feel, as sensitively and acutely as she reveals a woman's heart. I read probably two or three books a week (usually in the wee small hours) and this would have to be the pick of the last six months' reading -- and that's saying something! This is a novel lover's novel - fiction that feels utterly real.

Cusk's The Country Life is one of my favorite novels of the last ten years. The characters are hysterical and tragic at the same time; her use of metaphor constantly amazed me with its subtle power; although not much actually happens in the plot, the chaotic internal life of the main character creates a vivacious momentum that carries you quickly through the novel.

I was thrilled when I saw that Cusk had a new book (I have not read her recent book about motherhood). But the energy of The Country Life was not here. Her characterizations in The Lucky Ones are insightful--her knack for exploring unusual relationships gives many of the stories their driving force--however, I just couldn't care about them. I blame the short story format. The characters are connected--loosely--but not enough to sustain the cessation of story after story. As soon as we start to wonder about the incarcerated woman, her story is over. What happens to Jane? To Lucy? To Martin & Dominique? The last two stories do an admirable job of bringing together the themes set forth on the book jacket, "haunted by family, longing for love, the struggle to connect," but I was left feel like I could shelve the book and never think about it again.

I highly recommend The Country Life if this is your first venture at Cusk. As for The Lucky Ones, it is not the best example of her abilities.

The author of The Lucky Ones tackles relationships, particularly between parents and children in this series of interconnected stories sharing common characters. With incisive prose, Cusk addresses the lost opportunities that plague everyday life. Each new tale builds upon the prior one, adding characters and events, until she exposes the fragile fabric of their lives.

The first story sets the stage for the ongoing drama as a young woman grapples with the impending birth of her child, how the delivery will destroy the intimacy she has treasured throughout the pregnancy. Carrying a child has allowed her to pretend an emotional distance from undesirable surroundings. With the birth, she will be thrust into reality.

In another tale, we meet the acerbic Mrs. Daley, a woman engaged in an adversarial relationship with one of her children, Josephine. Mrs. Daley is offended daily by Josephine's choices, her unmarried state, current pregnancy and her paucity of worldly goods. Mrs. Daley is incensed by Josephine's lack of engagement in the one-sided battle for dominance. Lacking a sense of the fragility of others, Mrs. Daley builds her days around such small dramas, a petulant woman terrified of confronting her own shortcomings.

In yet another small drama, a group of friends go on a skiing vacation, forced to endure accommodations that are clearly unsuitable. Thrown together randomly, they muddle through the holiday barely connecting, ruminating privately over their personal accomplishments and disappointments, the drastic changes wrought by marriage and parenthood. They are virtual strangers, sleeping under the same roof by night, flashing down the icy slopes by day.

The author casts a discerning eye on the human condition, the choices that people make and then regret and the subtlety of ego, as each yearns for a comfort zone from which to address the rest of the world. No characters are ill-intentioned; they simply disregard the feelings of others while meeting the daily demands of busy lives.

Most striking in The Lucky Ones is the contrast between the characters' interiors and exteriors. Most of them construct elaborate interior lives to cope with the banality of marriages gone stale, irritating children clamoring for attention and a general disharmony that can be defined as unhappiness. The author's female characters are by far the most complicated, not particularly warm or considerate of one another, almost dispassionate in their treatment of friendships: "Vanessa imagined Serena's mind to be like the nest of some thieving, clever bird, lined with stolen fragments."

With its abstract, observant view of married couples and their relationships to each other and their children, this novel is vaguely reminiscent of The Ice Storm, with a similar construct of externals that highlight the emotional vacuum of disconnected lives. The author examines the absence of emotional commitment, reflecting a certain reality, a chill that hands like a pall over The Lucky Ones. Luan Gaines/2004.

This collection of short stories is not exactly positive, despite what the title might suggest. Through five interconnected short stories, Cusk relates to her readers the darker side of humanity concerning children and marriage.
It really seems to be about people who desire spouses and children as a way to fix themselves, to fill a void. Mistakes are always realized too late when there is no hope of turning back. Of course, this always ends in catastrophe and the impact seems to grow exponentially down the line.
If you are looking for the feel-good-hit-of-the-year, this is not it. But, as usual, the language is gorgeous and the ideas are realistic. Many people are just lost, desperate, and all-around f**ked up....this book is about those people.
I've said it before and I will say it again, Cusk is brilliant and this is another shining example of her depth and ability to relate everyday tragedy. Highly recommended.
If you are looking for something a bit on the lighter side, "The Country Life" (also by Cusk) is terrific as well, and very funny.

"The Lucky Ones" is not really a novel - it is a series of stories, bound together by some characters, but because each of them explores the thoughts and feelings of one person, each can be treated as a separate entity.

The characters come from all social classes and backgrounds in contemporary England - Kirsty is an expectant mom, in prison for a murder she did not commit; Vanessa is a stay-at-home mother in a hopeless marriage; Martin is a new father, distancing himself from his wife and a week-old daughter on a skiing trip; the conventional, old-fashioned middle-class Mrs Daley is a mother of a woman with post-partum depression... All the characters are connected by a common theme - the relationships and children, and how they deal with family issues. Their attitudes vary, but all are depicted with rare sharpness and clarity. They are lost and searching, doubtful and stubborn, conservative and revolutionary, forming a strange, although perhaps typical sample of society. I often found my own thoughts in theirs (although a lot of their wondering was unfamiliar to me). Children are central to the narrative, although they are not main characters, their existence is essential; the stories concentrate on different aspects of motherhood.

Rachel Cusk writes in a lucid, crisp prose, capturing the internal monologues and thoughts with ease. I liked the connections between characters and, common for all chapters, presence of Victor and Serena Porter- a terminally ill lawyer and his wife, who writes a family column for a newspaper (author's alter ego?).

This was the first book by Cusk I have read but I liked the psychological depth and nuances, and the explorations of family life, so much that I will read something else of hers soon.

I grabbed a copy of The Lucky Ones on impulse, and I'm glad I did. It drew me in from the start and I enjoyed the ups and downs of the stories, the varied moods, and the authentic feel of the stories within. I particularly enjoyed Cusk's grasp of extremely different views and backgrounds among her characters. She seems to have a tremendous "feel" for human nature which makes all of the stories feel rich and alive. It also had a nice balance of light and dark, there was beauty in every story and a little bit of the darker side of life as well. It made me want to explore more of Cusk's work in the future.

This book does not seem like it is going to say much initially. But I later could not help appreciating the artful way Rachel Cusk examined the sociological evolution of our current world through degrees of separation. I am writing this review now because this book in fact said so much. She infused a lot of different dynamics into these stories, demonstrating how every role is affected by our slow advancement into a more sophisticated although initially confusing era.

At the end I was struck by the overarching message of choice. The feminist movement may be inundated with bra-burning and other images of anger and rebellion, later to be followed by the angry dismissal of the movement by people like Rush Limbaugh with his "feminazzi" commentary. People who make these sorts of negative statements clearly do not understand the point.

The feminist movement is really about choice. Each and every one of us, including the men in our lives, should have a choice. One older male character in this book references the fact that he just did what he thought he was supposed to do: get married and have kids. He was coming upon this sudden realization that he did not necessarily have to do this.

The last character, Vanessa, realized that she had chosen, both blindly and stubbornly, to force herself into a traditional role of motherhood. She hated the trap she created for herself but when questioned by her more liberal neighbor, she defended it tooth and nail with an ironic tone and expression. Her marriage suffered. But when she was removed abruptly from this role, she saw that she did not have to stay trapped and was able to take ownership for her role in the creation and perpetuation of her trap. She could do something different - it really was possible.

I thought the anecdote at the end about the prisoner was a superb way to tie this all together. The prisoner had accepted, rather stubbornly, to remain in prison because she had given up. But clearly she did not give up entirely: she could still be visited because she wanted to be visited. And we can only assume that her visitor would relay to her the message that she did not have to stay in prison. She did in fact have the opportunity, if she allowed it, to be free.

I thank Rachel Cusk for reminding me that we can all still help each other escape the imprisoned way of thinking that pinned us down and took away our ability to choose. We can't stop fighting and we can't give up because it's just too hard...

The Lucky Ones is Rachel Cusk's fifth book. In it, there is a Contents page, which announces five sections. Each section stands by itself. There is a passing reference in each section to at least one character in another section. With a lovely circularity, the last section ends with, I believe, the only reference to the main character in the first section. A wonderful collection of linked stories. But the book, on its cover, calls itself a novel. I don't think so. Still, the author's writing throughout is even better in this book than her last.

The final section of The Lucky Ones is my favorite. In it, she goes into that depth of truthfulness that characterizes a work of substance. "'You're doing well for yourself,' said Vanessa sourly. 'And all that happened,' mused Serena, 'was that I finally worked out that people prefer what's true to what's right.'"

Cusk writes about shaping a day: "It seemed to Vanessa that she should do something to please Colin on his return from work, and this ambition immediately rose like a great spire from the humble structure of the day."

Finally, perhaps my favorite paragraph: "It was in the mornings that Vanessa most often suspected the existence of a problem. In the rumpled dawn camouflage of her bed she would open her eyes and think of the coming day and sometimes, just as when sometimes she turned the key in the ignition of her old Honda, nothing would happen. She lay there, paralyzed by the image of what she had both to construct and then to dismantle before being returned to this same bed, like a book being returned to its shelf, intact and yet somehow depleted of her information."

One of the best books I've read this year. Beautifully lyrical, clean, crisp prose. Deeply compelling, interlinking stories.