Rachel Cusk: A Life's Work: On becoming a mother

By MARGIE THOMSON

Anyone who is or has been a mother will read this account of Cusk's first few months as a mother with a great sense of recognition and excitement as one after another the extremes of that experience - extremes, mind you, that sound desperately unexciting to those not sloshing around in the mire - are transferred "still bleeding" to the page, as one reviewer has colourfully put it, and dissected, described, pondered over with wit, insight and metaphor.

It's not a book about loving or not loving your child: rather, it's about the experience as it affects you, and the conflict it represents in your self-definition. It's about what is, not what should be.

In some ways it's a deeply selfish book, a welcome resting place along the way as we stumble the rugged terrain of the mother country.

Fourth Estate

$21.95