Indelible Acts is A. L. Kennedy’s first book of fiction since Everything You Need, which was followed by a spell of suicidal desperation. We know all about that from On Bullfighting, her patchily received foray into the world of the matador which was only partly about matadors and partly about herself and her suicidal desperation.
With fiction it’s different, of course; you’re not supposed to confuse author and content or to assume any link. Still, whatever the state of Kennedy’s mind and emotions now, the predominant quality of these 12 stories – the common denominator – is, sad to say, gloom. And not always an interesting gloom at that. The Kennedy gloom tends to have a deep-seated, almost predetermined feel that makes it very hard to shift, let alone see through. It infects all her characters almost all of the time and comes across not so much as an absorbing trait as a giant attitude problem.
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