Review: Latest Rachel Cusk novel honors Mabel Dodge Luhan
Sign In
ANN LEVIN, Associated Press
FacebookTwitterEmail
This cover image released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux shows Second Place, a novel by Rachel Cusk. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux via AP)AP
“Second Place,” by Rachel Cusk (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
In 1922, the now-legendary arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan invited the British writer D.H. Lawrence to her home in Taos, New Mexico. A decade later, she published a memoir about the visit called “Lorenzo in Taos.”
Rachel Cusk’s latest novel, “Second Place,” was inspired by that memoir and written as a tribute to Luhan. One need not be familiar with the first to marvel at the second a brilliant but flawed allegory filled with ravishing descriptions of nature set in an unidentified land after an unspecified global financial collapse that has rendered travel almost impossible.
Image: Avid Reader
As moving as it is riveting, Patricia Engel’s
Infinite Country is a one-of-a-kind telling of the timeless story of migration. The era-leaping novel combines international history the Colombian Conflict, the introduction of the DREAM Act with the personal stories of a family whose bond cannot be broken by geography. A late-night dash for freedom in the opening chapter is just the start of a border-crossing relay race that spans the Western Hemisphere. Engel’s pacing is breathless she covers three generations in under 200 pages but just as frequently gives way to heart- and time-stopping moments.
Infinite Country is poised to be one of the most stirring page-turners of the year.
Classical Notes: The frozen aesthetic of John Luther Adams
FacebookTwitterEmail
2of5
3of5
5of5
The deep of winter felt like an appropriate time for an immersion into the work of John Luther Adams, a 68-year-old composer whose aesthetic is tuned into the natural world, in particular the frozen landscapes of Alaska, where he lived for more than 30 years. Adams won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral piece “Become Ocean,” which has just been released as part of a 3-CD set on the Cantaloupe label. This coincides with the publication of his memoir, “Silences So Deep: Music, Solitude, Alaska” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).