Life of M: A Glamorous Portrait That Fails to Connect

Vulture’s Emma Alpern argues Rachel Cusk’s Life of M is largely plotless and overlithe in its sheen, centering on a Natalie Portman–like celebrity whose fame distorts reality. The narration alternates between M’s inner drift and a vaguely ‘we’ observer, producing a tone that’s entertainingly acerbic but ultimately tedious, with occasional flashes of the sharpness that distinguished Cusk’s Outline trilogy. The piece notes that the most compelling moment comes when the author finally confronts the actress in a tense late scene, briefly injecting heat and suggesting what makes Cusk’s work provocative even as the novel otherwise lingers in abstraction.