A finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, this book is one of the ten best books of the year according to The New York Times. It was recognized as a notable book in the New York Times Book Review and named the best book of the year by The New Yorker, Vogue, NPR, The Guardian, The Independent, Glamour, and The Globe and Mail. Additionally, it was selected by the book critics of the New York Times as one of fifteen notable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century.

Rachel Cusk's "Outline" is a novel in ten conversations. Clear and concise, it follows a novelist teaching a creative writing course during a stifling hot summer in Athens. She guides her students in narrative exercises, dines with other guest authors, and swims with her neighbor in the Ionian Sea. The people she encounters speak at length about themselves: their fantasies, fears, favorite theories, regrets, and longings. Through these revelations, a portrait of the narrator is drawn in contrast, depicting a woman learning to cope with a significant loss.