The Review of Contemporary Fiction
So I Am Glad by A.L. KennedyTrey Strecker
A. L. Kennedy. So I Am Glad. Knopf, 2000. 288 pp. $23.00.
The first U.S. edition of Kennedy’s novel, originally published in the United Kingdom in 1985, is a quirky, comic love story, a smart and literate Blast from the Past. As the novel begins, the mysterious and magical appearance of Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac in a contemporary Glasgow boarding house upsets the chameleonlike equanimity of Jennifer, the narrator and ultimately Savinien’s lover, who works as a professional radio voice and prides herself on her calm invisibility. “An empty space” prior to Savinien’s sudden arrival, Jennifer evinces a considerable aversion to personal involvement of any kind, becoming “an expert in diversion” and simulating the “appropriate” emotional responses to quietly extricate herself from the messy business of living life. The novel contrasts the amnesiac Savinien’s desire to know the world and be known with a guarded Jennifer’s plan to disappear without a trace. Fortunately, Kennedy saves what might be a relatively predictable romantic plot with a genuinely honest and forthright narrative voice that cuts through urbane postmodern cynicism with charmingly deadpan humor and incisive social criticism. The book is its best when the lovers become aware that at the point where their lives intersect they have each become “a fraction more,” and Jennifer starts to consider risking a complex love “that included darkness and loving on alone,” shedding her protective guises, compelled to share her emotion and her story. [Trey Strecker]