Rachel Cusk's 'Life of M' Probes Celebrity and Fiction

Rachel Cusk's new novel, 'Life of M', fictionalizes the biography of a famous actress. The book, reviewed by Emily Witt in the London Review of Books, uses a figure akin to Natalie Portman to explore the nature of celebrity and the act of writing.

Cusk's novel begins with a writer proposing to create the autobiography of the actress M. The actress agrees, suggesting the author should just make it up. This sets the stage for a story that attempts to inhabit, rather than merely document, its subject. The tale is ultimately told in the omniscient third person, set in an unnamed city that strongly resembles Paris.

The Blurred Lines of Biography The writer in 'Life of M' closely resembles Cusk herself in outlook. The actress M aligns with the career of Natalie Portman, with the novel describing plots from films like 'Léon: The Professional', 'Black Swan', and 'Vox Lux' without naming them. Witt notes that M's thoughts, as imagined by the author, never seem authentic to the character. M even tells the writer, I don't like the way you portray me. The review suggests Cusk is seeking intimate knowledge of a ubiquitous but unattainable subject: the interior world of a celebrity.

Witt, writing as a journalist, sympathizes with this fantasy of total access. She contrasts the novel with intimate journalistic biographies, like Emmanuel Carrère's 'Other Lives but Mine' or Michael Herr's 'Kubrick'. Despite the fictional premise, Witt argues Cusk's vision remains constrained by the conventions of the celebrity profile, even offering a scene of M having coffee in a hotel garden.

The Mechanics of Fame In the novel, M is portrayed as self-effacing, describing herself as merely an element in the creations of others. She uses her artistry to make her life seem normal, performing mundane tasks like school drop-offs and dog walks. When the writer's partner falls ill, M sends a get-well message. The author views this gesture as calculated, a conscious selection of goodness from someone whose fame exempts her from ordinary relations.

The writer sees M as skilled at giving the appearance of paying attention, with her guesses at normality made through observation and imitation. Witt finds this perspective mean-spirited. She defends the character, noting that M's avoidance of certain foods at a dinner party could simply reflect that Natalie Portman is vegan.

Books as Props in a Celebrity World The author views fame as a primary metric of importance, lamenting, All my life it had been made clear to me how unimportant I was. The review contrasts the minor fame of writers-attending festivals and residencies, as Cusk depicted in her 'Outline' trilogy-with the fleeting celebrity of walking a catwalk. In one scene, the writer attends a staged literary panel for a fashion brand where a bookshop has been turned into a set. A supermodel on the panel is a bimbo, and a journalist is present to supply a grain of integrity. M is a dedicated reader, but in her world, books function only as props. A bookseller is one of the few characters in the novel who fails to recognize M.

The writer's gender is unspecified until the book's final sentences. Chapters of existential musing use a first-person plural we. This we sometimes refers to the writer and M, sometimes to the writer and their partner, and sometimes to a broader set of bourgeois city dwellers. It is an office, it is the interior of a limousine, it is a brasserie on a grey boulevard.