Juliet is enraged at the victory of men over women in family life. Amanda is warding off thoughts of death with obsessive housework. Solly is confronting her own buried femininity in the person of her Italian lodger.

Maisie despairs at the inevitability with which beauty is destroyed. And Christine’s troubled, hilarious spirit presides over Arlington Park and the way of life it represents. Rachel Cusk’s sixth novel is her best yet.

Full of compassion and wit, she writes about the domestic lives, private thoughts and fears of a group of remarkable and instantly recognisable women.