A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards - including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.
Connoisseurs of short stories that pack an emotional punch will find plenty to admire in this fine new collection. -- Max Davidson * Mail on Sunday * Kennedy is a superb writer and the canniness of her observation keeps you reading. -- Phil Baker * Sunday Times * AL Kennedy's seventh collection of stories is a quite astonishing...clear-eyed...masterclass in the possibilities of the short story form; comical, plangent... Words indeed for our times. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman * Striking, expertly constructed... Kennedy's exquisite blending of the limits of pain and courage recall Primo Levi. -- Catherine Taylor * Financial Times * AL Kennedy's latest collection of wise, funny, human short stories came at just the right time. I...emerged feeling better about the world than I had in a while... Kennedy is brilliant at subtly shifting the ground of her stories, gently rotating your perspective so that by the end you're facing in quite the other direction, not sure of how you got there... [There is] waspish intelligence at work here. -- Alex Preston * Observer *