Rachel Cusk’s Life of M explores fame, performance and the thin line between self and role

Rachel Cusk’s Life of M centres on an intriguing premise: a writer forms a tentative friendship with M, a famous actor whose life has been lived in public since childhood. With M now also the face of a major fashion brand, the novel places celebrity at the centre of a story about how identity is made, sold and perceived.

The resemblance to Natalie Portman is hard to miss, and the novel appears to invite that reading from the outset. M’s early film career mirrors well-known points in Portman’s public story, including a debut whose sex scenes are cut at her mother’s request and a later ballerina role that recalls Black Swan. That recognisable outline gives the book a pointed charge: it is not simply about fame in the abstract, but about the way a real public figure can become the template for fiction.

At the same time, Cusk complicates the idea of biography by refusing a straightforward version of authorship. When the narrator suggests writing M’s autobiography, M is immediately interested, even asking whether the narrator would simply invent it. But any expectation that the narrator will serve as a ghostwriter is quickly undercut, and the novel instead moves into a more elusive terrain, where the boundaries between lived experience, performance and story begin to blur.