Saving Agnes, Rachel Cusk
Saving Agnes, Rachel Cusk
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Saving Agnes
A Novel

Author: Rachel Cusk

Narrator: Antonia Beamish

Unabridged: 7 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/09/2025

Synopsis

The acclaimed winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award, by the author of The Country Life

Chronically confused, terminally middle class, hopelessly romantic, Agnes Day lives with her two best friends in the London suburbs and works at an obscure trade magazine. Life and love seem to go on without her. But she gives a convincing performance that everything is alright--that is, until she learns that her roommates and her boyfriend are keeping secrets from her, and that her boss is quitting and leaving her in charge. In great despair, she decides to make it her business to set things straight.

Rachel Cusk explores the business of growing up and moving on with a deftly comic, surprisingly moving touch, confirming her reputation as one of England's smartest and most entertaining young writers.

About Rachel Cusk

Rachel Cusk is the author of the Outline trilogy, the memoirs A Life’s Work and Aftermath, and several other works of fiction and nonfiction. She is a Guggenheim fellow. She lives in Paris.

Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on March 13, 2025

life is just giving a performance and being like "is this right? who knows" the whole time. it is so crazy that it was THE rachel cusk who wrote this book. the mind that brought us the spare monologues of the outline trilogy also came up with all of these adjectives. i guess everyone has to start som......more

Goodreads review by Trish on October 18, 2018

This first novel by Cusk won the Whitbread Award for First Novel in 1993 and it seems worthy of that distinction. It is less tentative than we would have reason to expect though it depicts a just-new woman carrying a load of insecurities while trying to navigate a large city. Ultimately Agnes manage......more

Goodreads review by Jayne on August 20, 2013

Every so often I need to read a Rachel Cusk....a proper wordy workout for the brain, like doing a cryptic crossword. They should all come with a free dictionary because it’s a sure thing that I will be reaching for one before long. I would consider it a wasted read if it didn’t contribute at least t......more

Goodreads review by makayla on November 29, 2023

Agnes is Esther from The Bell Jar in a parallel universe......more

Goodreads review by Nathália on June 29, 2022

Saving Agnes debuts Cusk’s career (who was only 25 at the time) with a coming-of-age story that has autofiction written all over it. Let me just start by saying that the larger-than-life vocabulary paraded through this novel taught me more than any language course ever did. The sentences are tailore......more

Quotes

“This is a sceptical, ironic, beautifully resonant prose, articulate throughout, with never a lapse . . . a splendid novel.” —Philip Hobsbawm, The Guardian

“She is a writer with a poet's eye for convincing detail, and touches on the raw emotions of life in a way that is affecting and true.” —Sunday Telegraph

“Rachel Cusk is the outstanding discovery of the year.” —Daniel Johnson, The Times

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