Second Place by Rachel Cusk (2021)

Set on a property in the Norfolk marshlands (where in real life Cusk lives with her third husband, a painter), the novel is narrated by M, a writer who lives there with her second husband Tony, a large silent man who is deeply connected to the land. Years ago in unhappy times, M stumbled across an exhibition in Paris of a well-known artist, L, and has been obsessed with his work ever since. Although she has never met him, she has started a correspondence inviting him to come and work in their “second place”: a house on the property the couple makes available to writers and artists. She is convinced L is one of the few painters capable of capturing the light and landscape where land and sea are meshed. She is also fascinated by the man whose paintings prompted her to leave her first marriage and change her life, though she also has the sense that she has met the devil, whom she describes encountering on the train back from that trip to Paris.

L stalls for months but eventually arrives after a complicated journey with a second unannounced guest, a beautiful young woman named Brett, whose presence throws M. In a subtle reference to the pandemic, there is a lightly-alluded-to world event occurring, which makes travel almost impossible. It has also caused M’s daughter, Justine, to return home with her Berlin boyfriend Kurt; the pair must now move from the second place to the main house. The weeks pass. Justine and Brett become friends. Encouraged by L, Kurt starts to write a novel, though when he reads from it one evening, L takes him down with a simple dismissive comment. M hardly sees L, and when he is in evidence, he keeps his distance or is openly hostile. They have a few challenging conversations. L decides he wants to paint portraits, not landscapes, and invites everyone but M to sit for him. When he does relent, instructing M to “wear something that fits”, M puts on her wedding dress and sets out, ignoring an out-of- character command from Tony to “Come Back Here”. However, when she approaches the second place she witnesses a bacchanal scene of L and Brett painting a ghoulish Garden of Eden mural on the walls and turns around. It is too late, Tony has driven away.

Tony is gone for five days, during which M is paralysed with grief. The evening he returns, L suffers from a stroke, returning two weeks later from hospital and forced to stay as the crippling, unspoken world events mean his work has no value anymore and he has nowhere to go. Brett