Parade

My annual Rachel Cusk ritual, this felt like an antidote to AI overload, a difficult book demanding slow lingering over its austere, unsentimental style in four loosely connected vignettes about artists called G. Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin's carrier bag theory, it's no-plot vibes—a jumbled bag of ruminations on existence, society, and personhood, allowing contradictions and flawed characters like real life, wandering without linear drive. It covers a woman attacked on the street reshaping her worldview, seeing threats everywhere, challenging novel expectations in an experimental gallery of ideas. Tough to wade through but beautiful, unpacking human art profoundly. For Cusk lovers; start with Outline for more structure, but this excels in carrier bag fiction's meandering insight.