Claire Lowdon

Too Much of a Good Thing

Serious Sweet

By

Jonathan Cape 515pp £17.99 order from our bookshop

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2011, A L Kennedy objected to ‘Hollywood endings’ and ‘people wanting the unobtainable’. She’s certainly not a writer we associate with happily-ever-after: her 2009 short story collection, What Becomes, asked what exactly does become of the brokenhearted, while in 2011’s All the Rage (more short stories), one character defines ‘the real experience of love’ as ‘having unreasonably lost all shelter’. Connections missed, damaged people doing damage to one another, loss, loneliness, the despair and rage that lurk beneath the everyday: these are the key ingredients of Kennedy’s inimitable fiction, leavened by some of the driest, blackest humour on the market. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'Her favourite design included a body in the shape of a horse, with a steam engine inside ... The passenger would t… ,
    • Sign up to our email newsletter below! Get free articles, highlights from the archive, and chances to win theatre… ,
    • RT : Founded in 1979, is a trusted independent source for reviews of new books across a variety of genres. A… ,
    • RT : Here we are - "Shelf Indulgence" by Ed Potten, a wonderful read, well worth your time: @Lit_Review,
    • 'Like going to a party hoping to get away as quickly as politeness allowed and at 4am finding myself still engrosse… ,
    • 'Neville never shed his sense of being the junior, and perhaps least-deserving Chamberlain.' From the archive, Mic… ,
    • 'The erecting and immediate destruction of a series of straw men rather detracts from what is for the most part an… ,
    Follow Us