{"id":1096277,"date":"2026-07-18T05:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1096277\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:29:17","slug":"natalie-portman-may-be-dark-portrait-in-rachel-cusks-new-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1096277\/","title":{"rendered":"Natalie Portman May Be Dark Portrait in Rachel Cusk’s New Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNatalie Portman<\/a> famously saw a twisted version of herself in mirrors\u00a0as part of her Oscar-winning performance as a tortured ballerina in Black Swan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe may experience the same queasy sensation if Unherd writer Valerie Stivers is to be believed, as she suggests in a July 17 column <\/a>that Cusk\u2019s upcoming novel, Life of M, is a thinly-veiled portrait of Portman.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Portman, despite apparently being friends with Cusk and a cheerleader for her novels, may not be flattered with what she sees in the literary mirror. \u201cChatter in New York literary circles says that Cusk\u2019s upcoming novel, Life of M, is based on Cusk\u2019s relationship with Portman,\u201d Stivers reveals in her Unherd column, entitled A Novelist\u2019s Dark Portrait of Natalie Portman \u2014 Rachel Cusk\u2019s New Book Mines the Actress\u2019s Life.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe novel, set for an Aug. 25, 2026 release and available for pre-order, centers on a famous actress, M, and a writer tapped to chronicle her life amid the glamor of olive groves, beaches and from behind the tinted windows of limousines.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe movie star M is one of the most recognizable 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,\u201d a synopsis from Macmillan Publishers, which is releasing Cusk\u2019s next novel in the U.S. market, states on its website.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow, a writer has decided to pay close attention\u00a0to M\u2019s life in the hope of understanding who she really is. It is hard not to feel ugly next to M, hard not to feel insignificant. But what truths \u2015 about the very experience of living \u2015 might this proximity allow the writer to briefly capture?,\u201d the synopsis continues.<\/p>\n

\n\tStivers, who like Portman lives in Paris, after apparently getting a peek at a pre-publication copy, hints in her column \u201ca Cusk book about you is never going to be flattering,\u201d and that the Hollywood<\/a> actress has concluded as much.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cM\u2019s key biographical information is very similar to Portman\u2019s. The actress\u2019 dissatisfaction and betrayal at the finished product, as recorded in the final pages of the book, is also said to be true to life,\u201d Stivers writes.<\/p>\n

\n\tPortman is certainly a fan of Cusk\u2019s novels. In a March 2021 Elle magazine<\/a> column where Portman, herself a best-selling author, was asked to recommend other books<\/a>, she cited Cusk. On which books surprised Portman, she answered: \u201cThat you can know much about a protagonist through the people around them: The\u00a0Outline\u00a0Trilogy (Outline, Transit, and Kudos) by Rachel Cusk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Hollywood Reporter reached out to representatives for Portman for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natalie Portman famously saw a twisted version of herself in mirrors\u00a0as part of her Oscar-winning performance as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1096278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3940],"tags":[128736,3444,4080,77,498,17068,16,15],"class_list":["post-1096277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-black-swan","tag-books","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-hollywood","tag-natalie-portman","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116939336081902641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1096278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}