Kennedy, A(lison) L(ouise)

(British, 1965– )

Kennedy writes with immediacy and power; begin with her short-story collection Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains (1990) which offers vivid glimpses into the lives of apparently ordinary people. So I am Glad (1995, Encore award) is an extraordinary novel, narrated by a woman with a fine line in irony, who has been abused by her parents and whose relationship with her lover has become terrifyingly sadistic. The possibility of happiness enters her life in the form of the ghost of Cyrano de Bergerac, a physically real and present man, despite his tendency to glow silver-blue at times. Everything You Need (1999) is set on an island which is a writers’ colony, and centres on the relationship between a writer father and his unknowing daughter Mary, who has been told he is dead. This long novel is peopled by characters in extreme emotional states.

Paradise (2004) explores the life of Hannah Luckraft, almost 40 and, in her own and others’ eyes, a failure. She seeks escape in alcohol, travel, altered states. Her first person voice is shockingly, intimately revealing and at the same time very funny. The freshness and precision of Kennedy's language is compelling.

James Kellman, Ian McEwan, Alice Munro. See SHORT STORIES  JR