Second Place (novel)

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Second Place
Second Place (Rachel Cusk).png
First edition cover (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021)
Author Rachel Cusk
Audio read by Kate Fleetwood
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US)
Faber and Faber (UK)
Publication date
4 May 2021 (US)
6 May 2021 (UK)
Media typePrint (hardback), e-book, audio
Pages192 (US)
224 (UK)
ISBN 978-0-374-90778-5
(US first edition hardback)
978-0-571-36629-3
(UK first edition hardback)
OCLC 1182584680
823/.914
LC Class PR6053.U825 S43 2021

Second Place is a 2021 novel by Rachel Cusk. [1] [2]

Premise

A female narrator, M, invites a famous painter, L, to use her guesthouse on the English coast marshlands where she lives with her family. It is inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan's 1932 memoir Lorenzo in Taos, about the writer D. H. Lawrence's early 1920s sojourn in Taos, New Mexico. [3]

Contents

Reception

Second Place received favourable reviews, with a cumulative "Positive" rating at the review aggregator website Book Marks, based on 42 book reviews from mainstream literary critics. [4] In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews wrote that Cusk's "brilliant prose and piercing insights convey a dark but compelling view of human nature." [5] Publishers Weekly , in its starred review, wrote, "There is the erudition of the author's Outline trilogy here, but with a tightly contained dramatic narrative." [6]

The novel was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, [7] and shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2021 Governor General's Awards. [8] Blandine Longre's French translation was awarded the 2022 Prix Femina étranger. [9]

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The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine La Vie heureuse. The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury. They reward French-language works written in prose or verse, by both women and men. The winner is announced on the first Wednesday of November each year.

The Governor General's Award for English-language fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a fiction book written in English. It is one of fourteen Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, seven each for creators of English- and French-language books. The awards was created by the Canadian Authors Association in partnership with Lord Tweedsmuir in 1936. In 1959, the award became part of the Governor General's Awards program at the Canada Council for the Arts in 1959. The age requirement is 18 and up.

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Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was a wealthy American patron of the arts, who was particularly associated with the Taos art colony.

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References