Faye

Faye, a British writer, is the narrator and protagonist of Kudos. Interestingly, Faye generally serves more as a conduit, or sounding board, for the characters that she encounters: most of the novel consists of secondary characters talking to Faye about recent events in their lives, or their concerns, desires and ambitions. Faye rarely reveals anything about herself in these one-sided conversations: her only comments generally serve to punctuate the remarks of her conversational companion.

Cusk reveals very little of Faye’s biography. At the novel’s outset, the reader learns that she is traveling to an unspecified European city, a city she had been to before with her son. We know that she was traveling to the city to participate in a literary festival, and that she earns a living as a writer, though she never, herself, specifies the genre of writing she typically works in (though we...