ABOUT THIS BOOK
PUBLISHER:
ISBN: 9781787331822
RRP: £16.99
PAGES: 288
PUBLICATION DATE: April 2, 2020
CATEGORIES
BUY THIS BOOK
- FIND YOUR LOCAL BOOKSHOP (UK AND IRELAND)
- FIND YOUR BOOK IN A SCOTTISH LIBRARY
- THE HIVE
- AMAZON
- WATERSTONES
- THE BOOK DEPOSITORY
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time
By A. L. Kennedy
A master-class in the short story, from the Costa Book Award winning author of Day
A. L. Kennedy’s new collection of stories show us women and men wrestling with the lives they have been given and the times spinning out around them. Humour, fantasy, rage and despair both help and hinder individuals as they navigate their changing circumstances, their accumulating losses, their moments of comprehension and tenderness. Hoping for a quiet day at the zoo, a woman finally snaps at a white man’s racist tirade and vents years of fury; an American micro-celebrity practises lines for a chat show on which he will never appear; a woman walks out of her honeymoon suite at midnight, perhaps for good; and, in the extraordinary ‘New Mexico’, the host of a podcast reveals why she is haunted by that particular US state.
Wry, caustic and unsparing in her close examination of human relationships and their failures, A. L. Kennedy sees harder than most writers – ‘Other humans are very unhappy, but try to seem glad,’ one character writes. ‘People do their best.’ In this collection of raw, brilliant, unforgettable stories, A. L. Kennedy shows – once again – why she is regarded as one of our great writers.
A. L. Kennedy
In 1993, A.L. Kennedy featured on a Granta list of Best Young British Novelists (along with such luminaries as Kazuo Ishiguro, Iain Banks, Hanif Kureishi, Ben Okri, and Alan Hollinghurst, to name but a few) and did not subsequently disappoint: her work has been consistently original, exciting and ground breaking.
Born Alison Louise Kennedy in Dundee in 1965, she attended school in Dundee before taking a degree in Theatre Studies and Drama at Warwick University. After a series of jobs, she began her writing career with the short story collection, Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains, published by Polygon in 1991. That was followed up by a succession of highly-acclaimed novels and short story collections. Kennedy has recently been seen on the stage with a stand-up act: a brave move, as she is a writer who does not court the limelight willingly.