Rachel Cusk’s upcoming novel Life of M is landing into a public argument before it has even reached readers. The book is being read as a portrait of Natalie Portman, and reports say the actress is trying to distance herself from it as publication nears at the end of next month.
That is why Rachel Cusk and Natalie Portman are being searched together now: the novel has become a test case for how far fiction can go when it looks a little too much like real life. Portman, 45, has a long association with Cusk’s work, but the new book has turned that link into a fresh source of attention.
Life of M follows an actress called M who is asked by her friend, an author and the narrator, whether she can chronicle her life in an autobiography. It opens with the narrator saying she told actor M she was thinking of writing her autobiography, and that M liked the idea because she was “a good sport.” The novel describes M as a film star interested in books, notes that her image looked out from shop windows and bus shelters, and traces her history as a child star. It also places her in a film centered around ballet, a detail that lands hard beside Portman’s own career path, which began when she stepped into the spotlight at 12 and later brought her an Oscar in 2011 for Black Swan.
Portman’s connection to Cusk has not come out of nowhere. In 2021, she recommended the Outline trilogy in an interview with Elle, then chose Second Place for her book club in September 2021 and interviewed Cusk while introducing her as one of her favorite writers. She later chose Parade for the same book club in 2024. That history is part of why the new novel has drawn such close reading now: readers are not starting from zero, and Cusk’s autofiction has long been known for blending real people and recognizable traits into fiction.
Yet the story does not fit neatly into the version of events now circulating around it. People close to Portman told The Times that she and Cusk have never been friends, even though the novel is being read as if it reflects their relationship. Those same sources said their few meetings included the virtual interview Portman conducted for her book club. Separate reporting has said Portman feels betrayed and outraged, while a literary critic familiar with Cusk said the book is very identifiably a portrait of Portman and suggests she has been subsumed by her own fame.
The ending of Life of M gives that reading more force, but not certainty. M tells the writer the portrait is hurtful and falsified, with things she does not recognize, then allows publication only if her identity is withheld. The narrator answers, “It isn’t you,” and then, “It isn’t anyone.” That is the book’s own escape hatch, but it is also the reason the question will hang over it when it is released at the end of next month: whether Portman says anything publicly before then, or whether the novel arrives with the denial built into its final line.
