How Natalie Portman Got Caught in Novelist Rachel Cusk’s

The high-low cultural event that is Rachel Cusk's Life of M has sparked a heated reaction from Hollywood star Natalie Portman, who accuses the author of writing a 'low blow' about her. The novelist’s controversial new novel Life of M is an intimate, unvarnished character study of an A-list movie star who is depicted as hollow, immature and cynical, an intellectual poseur and an artist wannabe.

Natalie Portman Slams Cusk's Novel as a 'Low Blow'

“To always be playing a part is to have no home, she thinks, nor any history,” Cusk writes of M. The star’s literal home is compared to “a big doll’s house, with her as the doll inside it.”

Early buzz about the book has been portentous, turning its release into one of the high-low cultural events of the year. Portman, 45, is the Hollywood movie star of her generation with perhaps the most cosmopolitan public persona.

“Cusk uses aspects of her own life — and perhaps Doloughan, an English professor at The Open University in the United Kingdom who has authored a book which examines how Cusk has reinvented the novel,”

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Fans Weigh In on Portman’s Reactions to Life of M

“Everyone is now more skeptical of what is scripted,” says Hywel Dix, an English professor and autofiction scholar at the U.K.’s Bournemouth University. “When that happens, we begin to question the truth content of these purported ‘truth’ narratives.”

The literature professor Arnaud Schmitt at University of Pau in France sees Life of M as both “a direct continuation of [Cusk’s] examination of reality, as well as a drastic change,” because it’s biofiction. “This is an imagining of someone else’s life,” he says.

Life of M culminates with a confrontation between M and the writer, who recalls, “I showed M some of what only I was referring to as our project” — the narrative so far. She appeared decidedly unenthusiastic about the situation. She said we needed to talk.”

Cusk and Portman didn’t respond to THR’s inquiries about whether the author had sought the actress’ approval before embarking on Life of M or showed her the manuscript before publication.