Emily Witt in LRB on Life of M by Rachel Cusk: ‘The celebrity doesn’t need a proper name because she is easy to recognise. She is the avatar of everything we are conditioned to desire: beauty, wealth, Dior.’

As well: ‘We write about famous people in the hope that some of the popularity will rub off on us. A journalist assigned to profile a celebrity will beg the famous person’s ‘team’ for exclusivity and negotiate over access to “scenes”.’

And: ‘No novelist is really a celebrity, not even Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. Writers more often settle for the minor fame of flying to literary festivals, giving interviews and attending residencies – a world Cusk describes well in her Outline trilogy.’

Finally: ‘Ageing has robbed “us” of the capacity to fall in love.’

A bitter narrator. Even proximity to celebrities is no cure for bitterness. Try yoga, whisky, or party drugs.

(a sf 2235)