Paperback of the Week

Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation, Rachel Cusk, Faber and Faber, £8.99

The title is not much of a draw; nor is the blurb, summarising the book’s account of the disorder following marital breakdown. Camilla Long’s scathing review – which last week won the Hatchet Job of the Year award – won’t have done it any favours, either. But this latest work by the English author Rachel Cusk has also won many admirers for its seeringly raw and personal account of a family in crisis. Cusk describes how all civility and self-control disintegrates between her and her husband of 10 years, how life descends into chaos, she and her two daughters excluded from the world of order, the normality of other families. She raises uncomfortable questions about the role of mothers, feminism and equality in the home. While you can’t help wondering about the husband’s side of the story, you’ll be fascinated and perhaps unsettled by Cusk’s unflinching honesty.