Faber signs ‘electrifying’ new novel by Rachel Cusk

Faber has acquired Life of M, the new novel by Rachel Cusk. Publisher Alex Bowler acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, including EU, from Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency, with publication scheduled for 27th August 2026.

Life of M is described as “a blazing interrogation of fame, power, beauty and truth”. Its blurb reads: “The film star M is one of the most recognisable faces of our time. Her image is everywhere. It has been like that since she was a child.

“With such fame, her life has the appearance of freedom: people are instantly obliging, spaces are altered to accommodate her, time can be rearranged. M may live in the same places as real people. She may meet her friends or collect her children from school or walk her dogs as they do. But it seems the rules of reality have melted away.

“Now, a writer has decided to pay close attention to M’s life, in the hope of understanding who she really is. What truths – about the very experience of living – might this proximity allow the writer to briefly capture? Is M to play a character in the book, or is it the writer who is acting the role of M?"

Cusk is the award-winning author of Second Place, the Outline trilogy, memoirs A Life’s Work and Aftermath and several other works of fiction and non-fiction, including her most recent novel, Parade, which won the 2024 Goldsmiths Prize.

Bowler said: “Life of M is a pinnacle from one of the true visionaries of the age, a writer who has forged a literary space that is entirely her own – a space from which we, her readers, so often emerge with our assumptions and understandings of life transformed. It is a novel of stardom and pursuit, of the slipperiness of images and the modern myths of beauty – a book that will leave readers electrified and altered, newly sensitised and alive to our times.”