Quiet, pithy tales in the Athenian sun

Although Outline is Rachel Cusk’s eighth novel, she is less well known for her fiction than for two power- ful and divisive autobiographical books. A Life’s Work (2001), an uncompromisingly truthful account of her experience as a new mother, angered many women who accused her of self-obsession, irresponsibility and even hating her own child.

Aftermath (2012), charting her response to the disintegration of her marriage, caused even more of an outcry despite its ...