A work of stunning beauty, deep insight, and great originality . . . Transit is a slender novel that contains multitudes. It is a work of great ambition, beautifully executed, a worthy successor of the brilliant Outline .” —Monica Ali, The New York Times Book Review The New York Times Transit fills in the ‘sketched-out form’ Cusk introduced in Outline . Her narrator's ongoing odyssey toward finding her bearings in her new life is a journey worth following.” —Heller McAlpin, NPRThe Toronto Star The Washington Post Minneapolis Star Tribune Los Angeles Times The Dallas Morning News The Boston Globe “ Cusk’s story-invention powers are so rich that the format feels as fresh the second time around as it did the first. It also hints at Cusk’s extraordinarily precise orchestration of narrative effects.” —Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times “ In Transit , the second novel in the series, Cusk hones her new approach, which might be called stream of conversation-ness. She structures her minimalist plot as a jeweler affixes glittering gems in a necklace . . . The experience of reading Transit re-creates, with delicious adult sophistication, that wonderful sensation of being a child, staving off bedtime by requesting tale after tale . . . Cusk at her most brilliant, feminist best.” —Miranda Purves, Elle The Atlantic Publishers Weekly , boxed, starred reviewTransit is a work of cut-glass brilliance that quietly insists on the reader's thoughtful attention. One beautifully crafted sentence follows another.” —Rebecca Abrams, The Financial Times Transit is a very fine novel indeed.” —Helen Dunmore, The Observer Transit ] is tremendous from its opening sentence . . . Cusk is always an exciting writer: striking and challenging, with a distinctive cool prose voice, and behind that coolness something untamed and full of raw force, even rash . . . she has developed a radically new novel form that works triumphantly . . . Transit steers with stylishness and grace between the low-lying truths and the significant dramas we compose for ourselves out of the accidents which befall us.” —Tessa Hadley, The Guardian Transit is an extraordinary piece of writing—stunningly bold, original, and humane.” —Joanna Kavenna, The Daily Telegraph “ Cusk's perspective on the human condition provokes and bewitches.” —Sarah Begley, Time Transit reflects her ability to make a profound impact with deceptively simple and always elegant prose.” —Nylon Transit ] is a delightfully fun read. Cusk knows how to write a great novel, and this one satisfies on many levels . . . she is producing work that is beautifully refined.” —Melissa Katsoulis, The Times (UK)Transit 's] placid surface, themes of displacement and the desire for transformation and authenticity rumble like small, violent earthquakes. It’s also gruesomely funny: the final part, which describes a particularly poncey dinner party, is like something from a horror story. Strange, frightening and brilliant.” —Clare Allfree, The Daily Mail “ Brilliantly written and structured, which is nothing new from this superlatively gifted writer.” —Kirkus Reviews Booklist (starred review)
A novel no less dedicated to uncovering what it feels like to be human. . . . The daisy chain of encounters made for addictive reading.
Literary Review of Canada
condensed, powerful
Cusk’s story-invention powers are so rich that the format feels as fresh the second time around as it did the first.
With literary sleight of hand, Cusk is playing narrative tricks, and Transit, like Outline before it, slowly reveals much about Faye, too, no matter how concealed she tries to remain. Transit is a brilliant meditation on change, freedom and the ways we construct our lives.
Brave and uncompromising in its literary ambition, Transit is a work of cut-glass brilliance that quietly insists on the reader’s thoughtful attention. One beautifully crafted sentence follows another.
One of the most daringly original and entertaining pieces of fiction I’ve ever read.
That Cusk makes such satisfying and original use of [her tribulation] is something of a modern literary phenomenon.
Transit is an extraordinary piece of writing—stunningly bold, original, and humane.
A work of stunning beauty, deep insight and great originality. . . . Compulsively readable. . . . It is a work of great ambition, beautifully executed, a worthy successor to the brilliant Outline, and a harbinger of great hope for the third and final installment—soon may it arrive.
New York Times Book Review
One of our most astute writers. . . . Cusk is very good at creating characters who seem fresh; they blossom under her pen. . . . This is part of what makes [Transit ] so effective and smart.
Quill & Quire (starred review)
Cusk’s perspective on the human condition provokes and bewitches.
[Transit] is a delightfully fun read. Cusk knows how to write a great novel, and this one satisfies on many levels . . . she is producing work that is beautifully refined.
[I]n her effort to expose the illusions of both fiction and life, she may have discovered the most genuine way to write a novel today.
How much should we say, this novel asks, and when should we say it? To whom? In Cusk’s case, a few words are enough to keep readers engrossed, waiting for more.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
The rare capital-L Literary writer who can make an entire novel about irresolution feel as gripping and binge-worthy as any thriller.
Cusk is one of the most lucid, powerful novelists working today, and Transit reflects her ability to make a profound impact with deceptively simple and always elegant prose.
Mesmerizing.
Quietly radical. . . . Ingenious.
With the sparest prose, Cusk has again created an expertly crafted portrait in this distinctive novel about the fear and hope that accompany change, and one woman’s quest to conquer them. A masterful second installment to a promising trilogy.
Booklist (starred review)
[Transit’s] themes of transience and dislocation are contiguous with a broader conversation about the fluidity of identity resulting, in part, from an increasingly—and contentiously (see Brexit, Trump, etc.)—borderless planet.
hypnotizing
Such deft positioning is Cusk at her most brilliant, feminist best-a reminder that she, and her readers, won’t be pinned down by stories, but freed.
[Transit] rests its claim to our attention on the consistent keenness of its insights into our human relationships.
Alienating yet intimate, dreamlike yet grounded, slim yet substantial, delicate but fierce, Cusk’s writing feels, exhilaratingly, unlike any other fiction being written these days.
Beneath [Transit’s] placid surface, themes of displacement and the desire for transformation and authenticity rumble like small, violent earthquakes. It’s also gruesomely funny: the final part, which describes a particularly poncey dinner party, is like something from a horror story. Strange, frightening and brilliant.
A reading journey you wish didn’t have to end . . . Cusk gives us engrossing, probing conversations . . . Her prose is exquisitely precise.
Rachel Cusk is returning fiction to its roots in storytelling . . . Cusk’s goal . . . [is] the establishment of a compelling, dreamlike language and worldview that are utterly her own.
[Transit] is tremendous from its opening sentence. . . . Cusk is always an exciting writer: striking and challenging, with a distinctive cool prose voice, and behind that coolness something untamed and full of raw force. . . . page-turningly enthralling and charged with the power to move.
In Transit , Rachel Cusk masters the art of revealing the one through the many.
Rachel Cusk is returning fiction to its roots in storytelling . . . Cusk’s goal . . . [is] the establishment of a compelling, dreamlike language and worldview that are utterly her own.
Mesmerizing.
hypnotizing
09/01/2016
