Book 90 - A. L. Kennedy " What Becones"
Nov. 26th, 2016 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveA. L. Kennedy " What Becomes" (Vintage)
The back cover blurb of What Becomes makes explicit reference to the old Jimmy Ruffin (among many other performers) hit What Becomes of the Brokenhearted and this collection of short stories does mainly examine fractured or doomed relationships within or outwith marriage. The emblematic story title here would be Whole Family With Young Children Devastated though in the story concerned it actually refers to a notice about a lost pet displayed on local lamp-posts. Two stories are exceptions. Another concerns the careful reconstruction of a new life and relationship after the woman's husband has died, while As God Made Us is about the camaraderie of a group of ex-soldier amputees and the prejudice they still face.
Kennedy's style in her short stories is oblique. Very little is stated outright either by her narrators or by the characters but it is all exquisitely, carefully written. The overall sense is of people clinging on, desperate to make connections.
There was one peculiar phrase where a character was described as, “constructing these laborious smiles which I think were designed to imply he was a dandy youngster and blade about town,” - of which I can only make sense by assuming that similes was the intended word. But if it’s not in fact a typo it’s brilliant.
The back cover blurb of What Becomes makes explicit reference to the old Jimmy Ruffin (among many other performers) hit What Becomes of the Brokenhearted and this collection of short stories does mainly examine fractured or doomed relationships within or outwith marriage. The emblematic story title here would be Whole Family With Young Children Devastated though in the story concerned it actually refers to a notice about a lost pet displayed on local lamp-posts. Two stories are exceptions. Another concerns the careful reconstruction of a new life and relationship after the woman's husband has died, while As God Made Us is about the camaraderie of a group of ex-soldier amputees and the prejudice they still face.
Kennedy's style in her short stories is oblique. Very little is stated outright either by her narrators or by the characters but it is all exquisitely, carefully written. The overall sense is of people clinging on, desperate to make connections.
There was one peculiar phrase where a character was described as, “constructing these laborious smiles which I think were designed to imply he was a dandy youngster and blade about town,” - of which I can only make sense by assuming that similes was the intended word. But if it’s not in fact a typo it’s brilliant.
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Date: 2016-11-27 02:31 am (UTC)Hugs, Jon
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Date: 2016-11-27 09:25 am (UTC)