In ALL THE RAGE, a collection of short stories by A.L.
Kennedy, she explores aspects of love and sex that are a bit
unusual. In one story a man has an affair with his maid,
although the maid seems to be completely disinterested in
him other than the sex. In another story, an older man and a
younger woman are in a relationship and have a bizarre
discussion about his death, which will inevitably take place
before his much younger lover.
The funniest story of the collection is entitled "Baby
Blue." In this story a woman wanders into a sex shop and
has an awkward conversation with the sales person who
refuses to leave her alone. The woman in this story swears
that she wandered into the shop by accident and can't get
out of there fast enough.
The writing in ALL THE RAGE is terse to the point where I
had to go back and look at some of the pages of the stories
a couple of times to understand what was going on in the
narrative. I think this is due to the fact that a lot of the
writing is the inner dialogue of characters.
If you want a different and entertaining view of love, then
give ALL THE RAGE by A.L. Kennedy a try. At the very least,
it will give you
a few hardy laughs.
A.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.
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