A. L. Kennedy — Indelible Acts

Jonathan Cape 2002 Hardback, 232pp. The twelve stories in Incredible Acts are variations on a theme of longing - the unassuagable human need for contact, for completionfor that most fugitive gift of all: reciprocal love. Its characters lives are thwarted, dashed, impassioned each in their own way immolated by hope. A queue outside a cheese shop leads to a thrilling infidelity; a crematorium funeral exposes a love gone sour; a foreign hotel room becomes a diorama of despair as physical sickness becomes a metaphor for incurable grief. In the title story, two lovers confront their lusts amid the ruins of Rome; in A Bad Sona young boy from a damaged home searches for some kind of peace in the newly fallen snow. Each story in this mesmeric new collection is an epiphany, a revelation: eloquent, excoriating - saved from bleakeness by humanity and humour - unflinching and unwavering in its scrutiny of desire and loss. DJ. (ISBN: 9780224062596). Very Good.