All the Rage, A. L. Kennedy
All the Rage, A. L. Kennedy
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

All the Rage
Stories

Author: A. L. Kennedy

Narrator: A. L. Kennedy

Unabridged: 4 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 04/29/2014


Synopsis

All the Rage was named to the shortlist of Best Short Story Collection by The Frank O’Connor PrizeA.L. Kennedy, the author of The Blue Book and Day, writes like a force of nature. Claire Messud says she’s “one of Britain’s most iconoclastic and fiercely independent talents.” Richard Ford calls her “a profound writer,” and Ali Smith dubbed her “the laureate of good hurt.”All the Rage is Kennedy’s riveting new collection, a luscious feast of language that encompasses real estate and forlorn pets, adolescents and sixtysomethings, weekly liaisons and obsessive affairs, “certain types of threat and the odder edges of sweet things.” The women and men in these dozen stories search for love, solace, and a clear glimpse of what their lives have become. Anything can set them off thinking—the sad homogeneity of hotel breakfasts, a sex shop operated under Canadian values (whatever those are), an army of joggers dressed as Santa. With her boundless empathy and gift for the perfect phrase, Kennedy makes us care about each of her characters. In “Takes You Home,” a man’s attempt to sell his flat becomes a journey to the interior, by turns comic and harrowing. And “Late in Life” deftly evokes an intergenerational love affair free of the usual clichés, the younger partner asking the older, “What should I wear at your funeral?”Alive with memory, humor, and longing, All the Rage is A.L. Kennedy at her inimitable best.

About A. L. Kennedy

A.L. Kennedy is the author of The Blue Book, What Becomes, and several other novels and collections. Twice named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, Kennedy won the Costa Book of the Year Award for Day. She lives in London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Thom on April 03, 2014

There are two voices in AL Kennedy’s writing – the miserablist author, and the stand-up comic. In All the Rage, her latest collection of short stories, the comic is in fine form but maybe the author is too downbeat for her own good. She can skilfully pick apart the ridiculous aspects of modern life......more

Goodreads review by Sandra on August 25, 2015

What a treat, twelve stories about love by the inimitable AL Kennedy. Love: looking for it, losing it, exploring what love is. Instead of describing the stories, I want to celebrate her writing. The way she tells us so much in just one or two sentences. ‘Late in Life’ features an older couple waiting......more

Goodreads review by Wolf on March 06, 2016

Don't read these stories when you're already down or on your way there. They are beautifully told and moving, but they are sad. A. L. Kennedy has an uncanny ability to make her characters come to life with all their quirks and pain and especially, which seems the main focus of this collection, their......more

Goodreads review by Farhana on August 05, 2017

This is the first time I read the author. It was apparent from the first short story that she is a master at crafting words. However, her precise observations interleaved with the characters internal monologue offered too much distraction during the reading, and for that reason, I didn't enjoy the f......more


Quotes

“Twelve galvanizing, elliptical tales…[the title story is] magnificent and often acerbically funny.”Publishers Weekly, Starred Review, Pick of the Week“The inner lives of Londoners are revealed bit by tantalizing bit in this ethereal collection by Scottish novelist Kennedy.” Kirkus“One reads Kennedy for the surprise of it all, the twist in the plot that reveals the quirk in the character that confirms the righteousness of a feeling that brings it all full circle.” Booklist