Book of the week: Nuclear Folly

Serhii Plokhy’s ‘gripping narrative’ reveals the bad decisions that led to the Cuban missile crisis

Nuclear Folly

Having started out writing “very funny” literary novels, Rachel Cusk has switched more recently to “austere” auto-fiction, said John Self in The Times. Second Place is “a synthesis of old and new” – an experimental, philosophically-minded novel that also has “big characters” and some “truly funny” jokes.

M, the narrator, is a writer who lives with her husband in a house on the coast. She invites a painter she admires to stay in its annexe (the “second place” of the title), but he brings along an uninvited companion – an “authentically awful” younger woman. Though not flawless, Second Place is a fascinating work from “one of our most interesting writers”.

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