"Kudos" by Rachel Cusk

'Kudos' is the third book in a trilogy by Rachel Cusk--unless the narrator--Faye--is going to attend another conference or make another trip on which her neighbor on a plane tells her the essence of his life. What's the next step up from a trilogy?

The first book, "Transit," had something near a plot, with Faye--a newly divorced middle-aged woman--starting a new life in a run-down, shabby house. But much of that book, as in "Outline" and "Kudos," has Faye as a listener and a reporter as the characters she meets relate their experiences of life. It's never quite clear what it is about Faye that leads these characters to unburden themselves. to her.

In "Kudos," Faye goes to a literary conference in some Mediterranean city, and she hears and reports numerous life stories or chunks of her characters' lives. There is no plot--indeed I have read that Cusk has gone on record with something to the effect that plots are out-moded devices. So the interest in this book is whether you are intrigued by the very varied experiences of the different characters she meets, who proceed to tell her about their lives in great detail. I had no problem with it--read it to the end: but I guess others might long for a plot, or might just get fed up with the lives of one or more of Faye's interlocuters and give up or skip on to the next.

One thing is abundantly clear--she is a brilliant creator of the stories her character tell.