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Now That You're Back
Exposing and exploring the sinuous undercurrents of violence, anguish and love, A.L. Kennedy examines the nature of the individual, both in isolation and society, as characters define and deny their chosen identities. While showing us the unlikeliness of intimacy and the impossibility of communication, Kennedy also reveals the subversive liberation of impotence, the humour of discomfort as human beings chafe together, the crazed claustrophobia of the family adn the wildly funny results of an eccentricity unleashed.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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267 people want to read
About the author
A.L. Kennedy
85 books298 followersAlison Louise Kennedy is a Scottish writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is known for a characteristically dark tone, a blending of realism and fantasy, and for her serious approach to her work. She occasionally contributes columns and reviews to UK and European newspapers including the fictional diary of her pet parrot named Charlie.
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January 16, 2016Sunday, February 1st, 2015: I’m sitting here, staring at the slanting snow outside, snow that is too wet, slushy and dirty to ever be the pretty version of the stereotype snow scene, and I'm wishing I could summarise the grimy, eccentric, unconventional world of A.L. Kennedy's stories, in one sentence.
Monday, February 2nd, 2015: two well chosen sentences might be enough to explain everything I feel about A.L. Kennedy’s Perfect possession of the short story format - if I were A.L. Kennedy, because she’s nothing if not subtle.
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015: I know I’m not making it easy for anyone who may be trying to get an idea of what A.L. Kennedy is about from this review, which I can now call a review since it’s grown to three sentences in length, but I’m stillvery trying...
Wednesday, February 4th, 2015: the thing is, A.L. Kennedy doesn’t make it easy for the reader; she works hard at keeping us out until she decides to invite us in, pacing her stories very, very carefully.
Thursday, February 5th, 2015: as we draw closer to the heart of an A.L. Kennedy story, all the odd-shaped pieces we'd been puzzling over start to slot together and we begin to see exactly where Kennedy is taking us, and while it's never exactly anywhere pretty, it's always somewhere interesting.
Friday, February 6th, 2015: this might be the day I get to explain why A.L. Kennedy's writing impresses me so much, especially as Friday is payday, but with A.L. Kennedy, even the words Friday Payday don't have the usual significance, meaning turns inside out, her pay, our pay, not the same thing at all, although we all kind of like it to come early...
Saturday, February 7th, 2015: here we are rolling towards another snowy Sunday and I’m wondering what I’ve done with the week besides warming my hands on the keyboard and annoying many gr friends by floating this serialised review of A.L. Kennedy’s short story collection, Now That You're Back, in the updates daily - which I did because I find Kennedy to be a fiercely talented person whose writing deserves, nay, demands a different review approach, because, like the writer character in the story, Warming My Hands and Telling Lies, the ‘lies’ Kennedy invents are oblique, innovative, satirical, sexy, hilarious, wise, tragic, curious, but most of all, human, in all the hues, daintily delicate to downright dirty, that man contains.
Sunday, February 8th, 2015: I’m sitting here, staring at the slanting snow outside...
Monday, February 2nd, 2015: two well chosen sentences might be enough to explain everything I feel about A.L. Kennedy’s Perfect possession of the short story format - if I were A.L. Kennedy, because she’s nothing if not subtle.
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015: I know I’m not making it easy for anyone who may be trying to get an idea of what A.L. Kennedy is about from this review, which I can now call a review since it’s grown to three sentences in length, but I’m still
Wednesday, February 4th, 2015: the thing is, A.L. Kennedy doesn’t make it easy for the reader; she works hard at keeping us out until she decides to invite us in, pacing her stories very, very carefully.
Thursday, February 5th, 2015: as we draw closer to the heart of an A.L. Kennedy story, all the odd-shaped pieces we'd been puzzling over start to slot together and we begin to see exactly where Kennedy is taking us, and while it's never exactly anywhere pretty, it's always somewhere interesting.
Friday, February 6th, 2015: this might be the day I get to explain why A.L. Kennedy's writing impresses me so much, especially as Friday is payday, but with A.L. Kennedy, even the words Friday Payday don't have the usual significance, meaning turns inside out, her pay, our pay, not the same thing at all, although we all kind of like it to come early...
Saturday, February 7th, 2015: here we are rolling towards another snowy Sunday and I’m wondering what I’ve done with the week besides warming my hands on the keyboard and annoying many gr friends by floating this serialised review of A.L. Kennedy’s short story collection, Now That You're Back, in the updates daily - which I did because I find Kennedy to be a fiercely talented person whose writing deserves, nay, demands a different review approach, because, like the writer character in the story, Warming My Hands and Telling Lies, the ‘lies’ Kennedy invents are oblique, innovative, satirical, sexy, hilarious, wise, tragic, curious, but most of all, human, in all the hues, daintily delicate to downright dirty, that man contains.
Sunday, February 8th, 2015: I’m sitting here, staring at the slanting snow outside...
December 5, 2013
Opening a collection of short stories is a little like getting into a lift (or elevator, if you prefer) – you never know who’ll get in, for how long they’ll ride, whether you’re likely to engage with them or what relationship, if any, they are likely to have with each other. Your curiosity may or may not be piqued, you may wrinkle your nose at the smell or be embarrassed at the enforced intimacy, however transient. What you do know is that, like any passenger in the lift, you’re unlikely to be vouchsafed someone’s life story, that your experience will only produce brief and probably blurry mental snapshots of your fellow travellers.
And so it is with this collection of A L Kennedy vignettes. In virtually every tale the reader arrives in medias res — you pass through gates straight into the midst of the action (such as it may be), trying to guess at characters, motivation, context, relationships, tone; and as each story concludes you never quite know if you’ve got a handle on it all, if your grasping at the situation attains something substantial or merely thin air. Sometimes a story reflects this seeming lack of substance: in ‘Failing to Fall’ the narrator allows others to dictate what happens to him but remains lost and directionless when not told to get into a taxi to who-knows-where. In ‘Armageddon Blue’ the protagonist is, literally, all at sea with her life, having cast off her previous relationships and – more in hope than in certainty – seeking both landfall and answers in the near future. And in the title story of the collection a young man is looking for his lost self — will he find it back with what remains of his family at the edge of the world where the land merges with the sea and the sky? We sincerely hope so, though even with the final “It’s all right” we can never be sure.
Within these taut and often terse mini-portraits we range the world, from Kennedy’s adopted home of Glasgow to London, from Wales to Paris and from rural America to an ocean cruise. In similar scenes we glimpse individuals – a fatuous guru, a twisted puppeteer, an underage prostitute, a ballet dancer — all with hopes and fears but each one ultimately lonely or alone, contemplating abandonment, past and present abuse, creeping age and certain death. Frighteningly Kennedy is able to get into the heads of fundamentalists, sociopaths and psychopaths and see the world from their warped point of view, from the controlling parents in ‘A Perfect Possession’ to the committed guerrilla in ‘The Boy’s Fat Dog’, from the fan-verging-on-stalker in ‘Warming My Hands And Telling Lies’ to the serial killer’s lover in ‘Mixing With The Folks Back Home’.
You might think that it’s all bleakness in these tales, but there is some leavening. We have a perfect take on the paranormal in ‘Christine’, humour in ‘On Having More Sense’ and satire in the rather strange ’The Mouseboks Family Dictionary’. But there is something sad about the collection as a whole, hinting at the strangeness that resides in every one of us, however much a view of normalcy we might try to project to the rest of the world. The problem is I’m going to be a little anxious about getting into a lift in future if the world is really inhabited by disturbed or damaged people such as the ones that Kennedy so effectively portrays here. It’s a tribute to her language and descriptive skills that we almost believe they inhabit our real world rather than merely residing in her imagination. Now That You’re Back is an impressive but disturbing portrait gallery, of characters both haunted and haunting.
http://wp.me/p2oNj1-D6
And so it is with this collection of A L Kennedy vignettes. In virtually every tale the reader arrives in medias res — you pass through gates straight into the midst of the action (such as it may be), trying to guess at characters, motivation, context, relationships, tone; and as each story concludes you never quite know if you’ve got a handle on it all, if your grasping at the situation attains something substantial or merely thin air. Sometimes a story reflects this seeming lack of substance: in ‘Failing to Fall’ the narrator allows others to dictate what happens to him but remains lost and directionless when not told to get into a taxi to who-knows-where. In ‘Armageddon Blue’ the protagonist is, literally, all at sea with her life, having cast off her previous relationships and – more in hope than in certainty – seeking both landfall and answers in the near future. And in the title story of the collection a young man is looking for his lost self — will he find it back with what remains of his family at the edge of the world where the land merges with the sea and the sky? We sincerely hope so, though even with the final “It’s all right” we can never be sure.
Within these taut and often terse mini-portraits we range the world, from Kennedy’s adopted home of Glasgow to London, from Wales to Paris and from rural America to an ocean cruise. In similar scenes we glimpse individuals – a fatuous guru, a twisted puppeteer, an underage prostitute, a ballet dancer — all with hopes and fears but each one ultimately lonely or alone, contemplating abandonment, past and present abuse, creeping age and certain death. Frighteningly Kennedy is able to get into the heads of fundamentalists, sociopaths and psychopaths and see the world from their warped point of view, from the controlling parents in ‘A Perfect Possession’ to the committed guerrilla in ‘The Boy’s Fat Dog’, from the fan-verging-on-stalker in ‘Warming My Hands And Telling Lies’ to the serial killer’s lover in ‘Mixing With The Folks Back Home’.
You might think that it’s all bleakness in these tales, but there is some leavening. We have a perfect take on the paranormal in ‘Christine’, humour in ‘On Having More Sense’ and satire in the rather strange ’The Mouseboks Family Dictionary’. But there is something sad about the collection as a whole, hinting at the strangeness that resides in every one of us, however much a view of normalcy we might try to project to the rest of the world. The problem is I’m going to be a little anxious about getting into a lift in future if the world is really inhabited by disturbed or damaged people such as the ones that Kennedy so effectively portrays here. It’s a tribute to her language and descriptive skills that we almost believe they inhabit our real world rather than merely residing in her imagination. Now That You’re Back is an impressive but disturbing portrait gallery, of characters both haunted and haunting.
http://wp.me/p2oNj1-D6
February 19, 2017
This was my first Kennedy encounter, & I really liked it. A couple of the stories were a bit strange or a little vague but even with them her wit & style shone through. Others were simply gorgeous. I enjoyed her in the same way I love Zoe Strachan's stuff, in that Glasgow is often an element in the stories - a Glasgow which I know & which is neither tartanised nor criminalised. Instead its unique characteristics are allowed to show through, for better or for worse.
April 22, 2024
Ik ben op A.L. Kennedy gebotst dankzij Annelies Verbeke en de onvolprezen podcast 'Drie Boeken' van Wim Oosterlinck. En toen ik een verhalenbundel van haar tegenkwam in een boekenruilkastje in de buurt, nam ik hem onmiddellijk mee.
Bij ongeveer alle verhalen word je midden in het verhaal gegooid. Je kijkt vanuit de blik van het hoofdpersonage naar de gebeurtenissen en ontdekt maar al lezende wie het hoofdpersonage juist is – een poppenspeler, een profeet, een prostituee, een vrouw die gedachten kan lezen, ... – en waar die mee worstelt in het leven. De psychologische portretten zijn soms existentieel-zwaar, soms absurd-grappig. Ook als de beginsituatie onmiddellijk duidelijk is, valt er toch nog voldoende onverwachts te ontdekken al lezende. In 'Mixing with the folks back home' bijvoorbeeld wil de moeder aan haar dochter in een brief uitleggen wie nu echt haar biologische vader is, maar ik vermoed dat de dochter vooral versteld zal staan van wat ze te weten komt in die brief over haar vader die haar opgevoed heeft.
Dit verhaal toont ook meteen heel goed aan hoe Kennedy een sfeer weet te vatten. Nog voor je woordelijk weet dat het verhaal zich ergens in de Verenigde Staten afspeelt, voel je al die Amerikaanse setting. Andere verhalen spelen zich dan weer af in Londen, Dublin, Parijs, of op het Schotse platteland. Naast die diversiteit viel het me ook op dat God in ongeveer elk verhaal voorkomt. Veel personages geloven en dat geloof wordt soms ernstig genomen, soms (zoals in het openingsverhaal 'The Perfect Possession') bekritiseerd of (in 'On Having More Sense') geïroniseerd. God lijkt me een rode draad, maar ook daar krijgen we een breed palet aangeboden.
Ik durf zeggen dat ik elk verhaal graag gelezen heb, maar mijn favoriete verhalen zijn toch:
- 'On Having More Sense': een 'Wise Old Man' spreekt zijn volk toe en vertelt hen wat we allemaal van de pinguins kunnen leren voor ons geloof. Gniffelend goed.
- 'The Mouseboks Family Dictionnary': via de alfabetisch gebrachte lemma's uit een zogezegd familiewoordenboek leer je de helemaal psychopathische, paranoïde familie Mouseboks kennen. Hilarisch, maar ook heel sterk geformuleerd. Eén lemma om je een idee te geven:
- 'Warming my Hands And Telling Lies': een beginnende journalist bezoekt een schrijfster die in Dublin gaan wonen is. De hele ontmoeting is een teleurstelling, maar de brief aan het einde maakt misschien wel alles goed. Zie de titel als een poëtica.
- 'Mixing with the Folks Back Home': zie hierboven. Kennedy speelt op een erg verrassende manier met allerlei Amerikaanse pulpfilmelementen.
- Het titelverhaal 'Now that you're back': prachtig verhaal over de liefde tussen drie broers. Een prachtige openingsscène over het bezoek aan een leeggemaakte kerk zorgde ervoor dat ik tot het einde ontroerd werd. Mijn nummer 1 uit de bundel.
Bij ongeveer alle verhalen word je midden in het verhaal gegooid. Je kijkt vanuit de blik van het hoofdpersonage naar de gebeurtenissen en ontdekt maar al lezende wie het hoofdpersonage juist is – een poppenspeler, een profeet, een prostituee, een vrouw die gedachten kan lezen, ... – en waar die mee worstelt in het leven. De psychologische portretten zijn soms existentieel-zwaar, soms absurd-grappig. Ook als de beginsituatie onmiddellijk duidelijk is, valt er toch nog voldoende onverwachts te ontdekken al lezende. In 'Mixing with the folks back home' bijvoorbeeld wil de moeder aan haar dochter in een brief uitleggen wie nu echt haar biologische vader is, maar ik vermoed dat de dochter vooral versteld zal staan van wat ze te weten komt in die brief over haar vader die haar opgevoed heeft.
Dit verhaal toont ook meteen heel goed aan hoe Kennedy een sfeer weet te vatten. Nog voor je woordelijk weet dat het verhaal zich ergens in de Verenigde Staten afspeelt, voel je al die Amerikaanse setting. Andere verhalen spelen zich dan weer af in Londen, Dublin, Parijs, of op het Schotse platteland. Naast die diversiteit viel het me ook op dat God in ongeveer elk verhaal voorkomt. Veel personages geloven en dat geloof wordt soms ernstig genomen, soms (zoals in het openingsverhaal 'The Perfect Possession') bekritiseerd of (in 'On Having More Sense') geïroniseerd. God lijkt me een rode draad, maar ook daar krijgen we een breed palet aangeboden.
Ik durf zeggen dat ik elk verhaal graag gelezen heb, maar mijn favoriete verhalen zijn toch:
- 'On Having More Sense': een 'Wise Old Man' spreekt zijn volk toe en vertelt hen wat we allemaal van de pinguins kunnen leren voor ons geloof. Gniffelend goed.
- 'The Mouseboks Family Dictionnary': via de alfabetisch gebrachte lemma's uit een zogezegd familiewoordenboek leer je de helemaal psychopathische, paranoïde familie Mouseboks kennen. Hilarisch, maar ook heel sterk geformuleerd. Eén lemma om je een idee te geven:
God: Mousebokses have a deep and working belief in God which has, form many generations, meant that Mousebokses do not generally pray at all for Fear that God will hear where they are and come to get them.
- 'Warming my Hands And Telling Lies': een beginnende journalist bezoekt een schrijfster die in Dublin gaan wonen is. De hele ontmoeting is een teleurstelling, maar de brief aan het einde maakt misschien wel alles goed. Zie de titel als een poëtica.
- 'Mixing with the Folks Back Home': zie hierboven. Kennedy speelt op een erg verrassende manier met allerlei Amerikaanse pulpfilmelementen.
- Het titelverhaal 'Now that you're back': prachtig verhaal over de liefde tussen drie broers. Een prachtige openingsscène over het bezoek aan een leeggemaakte kerk zorgde ervoor dat ik tot het einde ontroerd werd. Mijn nummer 1 uit de bundel.
September 26, 2008
An extremely good short story collection. She has a very distinctive voice. There are some very funny stories - On Having More Sense, The Mousebok's Family Dictionary - and some dark, creepy, bizarre ones that are funny in a very off kilter way - A Perfect Possession, Mixing With the Folks Back Home. A standout for me, though, was the sweet and haunting Christine. A major talent.
March 25, 2016
having once written a love e-mail in the form of a dictionary of poetic terms (!?) i have a weakness for alternative fictionalised glossaries. the middle story, 'the mouseboks family dictionary', is harrowing, hilarious, and deftly paced & cross-referenced. she's a varied & intelligent short-story writer and there was a subtle charm to the rest of the stories. i was drawn in but ultimately unsettled by them in not-the-best-way.
weirdly similar in tone to 'the cement garden' by ian mcewan (though by no means as icky) ... i seem to be consistently creeped out by mid-'90s brit-fic. so that's just me.
weirdly similar in tone to 'the cement garden' by ian mcewan (though by no means as icky) ... i seem to be consistently creeped out by mid-'90s brit-fic. so that's just me.
April 24, 2008
Kennedy’s second collection (with a novel written—or at least published— in between). She touches on some of the same themes as the previous collection, still does a lot of monologues, but this collection has a broader range of styles, even a “traditional” story with scenes. “The Mouseboks Family Dictionary” is a brilliant experiment. I’d call it post-modern, but it harks back to Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary. Even if imitative, her use of a dictionary to tell her “story” is innovative and funny, yet deadly serious.
August 23, 2018
This is one of the strangest and weirdest collection of stories I've read in some time; some of them completely sail over my head, and others are just incredibly off-putting. But this book manages to reach three stars for two reasons: (1) AL Kennedy has an incredibly smooth writing style, in spite of the head-scratching subject matter, and (2) a number of stories in the collection are absolute gems, whether its through a sense of humour with penguins, or a melancholy story about never meeting your idols, especially retired writers.
December 12, 2019
There are two rules with a writer’s early works: never start with them, never review them. They are good enough for the fans and the academics. Laymen like you and me should stay away.
With AL Kennedy I am breaking both rules. I should not, particularly the second one. Reviewing early works outside of academic publication is utterly unfair and this is why.
The author’s style is not yet mature, her matter has not completely emerged from her teenage desire to express herself, her thoughts are not entirely articulate. Most of the stories in this collection suffer from their author’s shyness. Her lack of confidence in her own writing is palpable. It is most evidenced in Mixing With the Folks Back Home, the only text where AL Kennedy actually shows none of this shyness, and strolls among her characters with the wits and confidence of a Mark Twain. This funny, quirky and irreverent text is an oddity, standing out among he collection as if written by someone else. Where all the other texts show in their tone a consistency announcing the emergence of a personal style, this one’s voice is completely different. AL Kennedy was not even thirty when this was published. Apparently, the only way she could trust her skills at that time was by borrowing someone else’s voice.
The other stories are, for the most part, obscure. Kennedy writes from inside her character’s head. She writes diaries, confessions; her texts are scarce on concrete details and detailed on emotions. The action is always blur, indistinct, other people’s motives unclear, as is the unfurling of the plot. Her voice, though, is already here: coldly lucid, emotionally hurt, resigned to the worst. The deceptions of love, the inadequacy between language and feelings, the violence of every day life. It is, as always with her, an uncomfortable read, albeit not devoid of humour. But humour never dominates. It is, at best, a temporary shelter from the chilling realities of being a human.
From the early stages of her career, AL Kennedy is a wounded soul who carries on exposing herself. This is what makes her such a moving writer. These early stories expose in full view the raw layers of feelings that constitute, to this day, her primary material. They are a worthwhile read if you are already a fan. But, as the first rule dictates, do not judge her by them. If you are to start reading her, start with Day.
With AL Kennedy I am breaking both rules. I should not, particularly the second one. Reviewing early works outside of academic publication is utterly unfair and this is why.
The author’s style is not yet mature, her matter has not completely emerged from her teenage desire to express herself, her thoughts are not entirely articulate. Most of the stories in this collection suffer from their author’s shyness. Her lack of confidence in her own writing is palpable. It is most evidenced in Mixing With the Folks Back Home, the only text where AL Kennedy actually shows none of this shyness, and strolls among her characters with the wits and confidence of a Mark Twain. This funny, quirky and irreverent text is an oddity, standing out among he collection as if written by someone else. Where all the other texts show in their tone a consistency announcing the emergence of a personal style, this one’s voice is completely different. AL Kennedy was not even thirty when this was published. Apparently, the only way she could trust her skills at that time was by borrowing someone else’s voice.
The other stories are, for the most part, obscure. Kennedy writes from inside her character’s head. She writes diaries, confessions; her texts are scarce on concrete details and detailed on emotions. The action is always blur, indistinct, other people’s motives unclear, as is the unfurling of the plot. Her voice, though, is already here: coldly lucid, emotionally hurt, resigned to the worst. The deceptions of love, the inadequacy between language and feelings, the violence of every day life. It is, as always with her, an uncomfortable read, albeit not devoid of humour. But humour never dominates. It is, at best, a temporary shelter from the chilling realities of being a human.
From the early stages of her career, AL Kennedy is a wounded soul who carries on exposing herself. This is what makes her such a moving writer. These early stories expose in full view the raw layers of feelings that constitute, to this day, her primary material. They are a worthwhile read if you are already a fan. But, as the first rule dictates, do not judge her by them. If you are to start reading her, start with Day.
July 18, 2020
This a collection of short stories with a terrifying cover so I had no idea what to expect. It was great. Dark but insightful - nice to read some short stories for a change, it’s a big ask to set the stage and create something to care about in just a few pages. I’m not sure how this made it on to my bookshelf but I’m glad it did.
June 11, 2019
This is an amazing book brimming with sarcasm and wit. I have never forgotten the ever amazing "Mousebok's family dictionary" with its subtle dose of twisted realism and humour... Twenty two years after reading it, it's still with me...
April 9, 2020
There were a few stories that I liked but most of them weren't for me.
A Perfect Possession - 3.5
Like a City in the Sea - 3
Mixing With The Folks Back Home - 3.5
The rest were mainly 2.5 with a couple of 1 stars.
A Perfect Possession - 3.5
Like a City in the Sea - 3
Mixing With The Folks Back Home - 3.5
The rest were mainly 2.5 with a couple of 1 stars.
August 27, 2021
Like many short story collections some stories you love and some you don’t. I didn’t love quite a few of them but there are some I will definitely revisit in the future—especially “Warming My Hands and Telling Lies”
January 18, 2022
It took me a little while to get into these stories which can be a bit obscure but she is such a wonderful wordsmith that I persevered and ended up loving them, especially the last two and will - without a doubt - read some of them again.
November 20, 2018
Forgotten
February 14, 2019
Weird and compelling. Just read a second time.
February 20, 2019
I particularly loved the story set in America. A really unique type of humour.
April 16, 2020
She's good at imagining you inside someone else's head but this is often an uncomfortable place to be - scary or weird or just unpleasant. Not a keeper or to recommend really.
September 9, 2020
A.L. Kennedy is an exquisite short story writer, and this is a fine collection. Manages to create an unsettled air in the most benign of scenarios, I always enjoy her writing.
February 21, 2022
I only really liked failing to fall tbh
February 12, 2017
This must be one of the best 25p charity shop buys ever. An excellent and wonderfully strange and often disturbing collection of short stories from fairly early in A.L. Kennedy's career.
January 2, 2016
Warning - this is not for those who want a cheery tale - none of them are. At times quiet and tender, at times black humor, the tales are compelling and moody. Almost all of them draw the reader in immediately. Kennedy's style is such that she begins the stories with killer lines that make you want more. Each sentence provides the reader with a little more information about what is happening, and by the time you know it, the story has ended. Some stories have a closed ending, but many leave you frustrated but somehow disturbed. A great introduction to the author, but I fear that I may not be able to handle any of her full novels. They may be too depressing.
February 24, 2020
He terminado esta colección de relatos con sentimientos encontrados. Los primeros me parecieron demasiado simplones (aunque "On having more sense" me hizo gracia). Luego comencé a apreciar las maneras de A. L. Kennedy como narradora, pero aún me faltaba algo. Como si su talento no estuviera al servicio de nada en concreto, no llevara con claridad en dirección alguna. Ahora tengo ganas de volver a leer algo de esta autora, quizás una novela. A ver si entonces me lleva, o me dejo yo llevar.
September 19, 2013
Couldn't finish this, too chilling and depressing. It's a tribute to her writing though that the chills and threats she uses as the basis for get stories are so well written they get into your bones.
November 15, 2013
Raw, disturbing. Glimpses into a naked soul, no pretensions. It is like reading the minds of people without they finding out. It is chilling! Three stories stood out for me: Christine, Friday PayDay and Mixing With The Folks Back Home.
July 7, 2015
This book contains lots of short stories; some of which are comedic however most of them are quite dark. That's the beauty of A. L. Kennedy's work, she writes stories which make you think and are very powerful and inspire strong emotion. It is a must read.
December 9, 2010
Worth it for 'The Mouseboks Family Dictionary' alone. Darkly hysterical short stories. 'Mixing with the folks back home' is incredibly funny. By turns, comic, chilling and moving.
August 6, 2011
Very good selection of short stories with my favourite being the Mousebok's Family Dictionary.
June 28, 2014
Sullen, decadently melancholic but always beguiling in structure and tone. Highlights for me included the stories 'Failing to Fall' and 'Warming My Hands and Telling Lies'.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews