The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Indelible Acts, by A.L. Kennedy
reviewed by Irving Malin

Untitled document

A. L. Kennedy. Indelible Acts. Knopf, 2003. 191 pp. $23.00.

This collection’s twelve stories wonderfully capture the motivation, the tangled mechanics of love. It must be read slowly—as slowly as we read the great loves in Swann’s Way or The Wings of the Dove. (I do not claim that this book is as profound as those novels, but i want to define their dense rendering of love’s affectations and affliction.) The first story, “Spared,” conveys the slippery words of a man and woman waiting in line at a grocery. Greg, who is married, tries to seduce Amanda by joking. They amuse themselves by playing with words. Greg “had dipped his head and spoken close, close as a kiss beside her ear, because this was appropriate under the circumstance and because he’d hoped that she might like it.” Amanda and he are, it seems, actors who speak lines to caress their minds. And it is precisely this complicated dance of rhetoric that leads to bodily desire. There is an intricate design in these stories. The lovers—whether in Venice or London—use language to deny their solipsistic yearnings; at the same time they know that “conversation” really contains private monologues. There are two levels of meaning, and often the levels are somehow not in harmony. Thus Kennedy’s style is a kind of arc. Look, for example, at the opening of “A Wrong Thing”—an example of her ambiguous titles: “I would prefer not to open my eyes, not this morning. In the end I know I have to, but I’ll do it against my will.” The narrator, like many of Kennedy’s lover, is unbalanced—longing not to act, not to face the other—but his very unwillingness hints at his desire. Yes and no! Possess and dispossess! Such binaries come together if only briefly, causing satisfaction and guilt. Kennedy demonstrates that love, like art, mysteriously turns at unexpected times. It is difficult to find one’s way in the woods (words) of desire. It makes us wonder, finally, whether love deserves or creates an adverse reaction.


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Indelible Acts, by A.L. Kennedy reviewed by Irving Malin Untitled document A. L. Kennedy. Indelible Acts. Knopf, 2003. 191 pp. $23.00. This collection’s twelve stories wonderfully capture the motivation, the tangled mechanics of love. It must be read slowly—as slowly as we read the great loves in Swann’s Way or The Wings of the Dove. (I do not claim that this book is as profound as those novels, but i want to define their dense rendering of love’s affectations and affliction.) The first story, “Spared,” conveys the slippery words of a man and woman waiting in line at a grocery. Greg, who is married, tries to seduce Amanda by joking. They amuse themselves by playing with words. Greg “had dipped his head and spoken close, close as a kiss beside her ear, because this was appropriate under the circumstance and because he’d hoped that she might like it.” Amanda and he are, it seems, actors who speak lines to caress their minds. And it is precisely this complicated dance of rhetoric that leads to bodily desire. There is an intricate design in these stories. The lovers—whether in Venice or London—use language to deny their solipsistic yearnings; at the same time they know that “conversation” really contains private monologues. There are two levels of meaning, and often the levels are somehow not in harmony. Thus Kennedy’s style is a kind of arc. Look, for example, at the opening of “A Wrong Thing”—an example of her ambiguous titles: “I would prefer not to open my eyes, not this morning. In the end I know I have to, but I’ll do it against my will.” The narrator, like many of Kennedy’s lover, is unbalanced—longing not to act, not to face the other—but his very unwillingness hints at his desire. Yes and no! Possess and dispossess! Such binaries come together if only briefly, causing satisfaction and guilt. Kennedy demonstrates that love, like art, mysteriously turns at unexpected times. It is difficult to find one’s way in the woods (words) of desire. It makes us wonder, finally, whether love deserves or creates an adverse reaction.

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