Aftermath

Aftermath is a personal account of a marriage ending after ten years. Rachel Cusk describes how her life came apart in the months that followed. She begins to see herself as a woman on her own and shapes a different home life for her daughters. She finds strengths and freedoms, yet also feels vulnerable to outsiders, advice, social displacement and the lack of clear authority. The wish to make life normal for her daughters competes with the feeling that nothing is normal. The book charts a difficult return to order from family chaos.

Why You Should Read?

• Follow Rachel Cusk as she rebuilds her identity as a woman living alone.
• Discover how she creates a different family life for her daughters after separation.
• Understand the previously unknown strengths and freedoms she finds during this separation.
• Explore the social displacement and unwelcome advice she faces from outsiders after her marriage ends.

About the Author

Rachel Cusk was born on 8 February 1967 and is a novelist from England. She has written thirteen novels, along with memoirs and other non-fiction. Her books have won several awards, such as the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. They have also been shortlisted and longlisted for other prizes, including the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize. Her writing has dealt with motherhood, marriage, satire, and more experimental ways of telling a narrative.