PositiveHarper\'s\"[McLoughlin] tackles her complex plot with the precision of a master technician: conflicts escalate, and with them suspense, in a well-paced and meticulously conceived narrative ... raises thoughtful questions about responsibility and truthfulness in intimate relationships, about artistic authorship and ownership, and about the roles of gender and of generations in artistic production ... McLaughlin captures the textured tapestries of these compellingly believable lives, from the expensive cars parked outside Jennifer’s private school to the needling discomfort of recalling, in precise detail, the transgressions of decades past. At the same time, The Art of Falling—a title whose layered cleverness only eventually becomes clear—is perhaps a mite tidy, its strands rather too perfectly braided.\
Rachel Cusk
RaveThe New York Review of BooksCusk pulls off a rare feat: richly philosophical fiction—addressing nothing less ambitious than how to live in relationships with others—in which ideas are so successfully and naturally embedded in the quotidian that the reader can choose whether or not to acknowledge them. Outline and Transit are being hailed as masterpieces, not without cause; if anything, the new book is even stronger than its predecessor. Cusk has long been one of the finest and most invigorating stylists writing in English, graced with scientific precision, meticulous syntax, and a viperous wit. I take enormous pleasure in her sentences.
