Alive in the Merciful Country
A.L. Kennedy (Saraband, £18.99)
THE once prolific author Alison Kennedy seems to have put her career on hold for the past half-decade: her last publication in English was the short story collection We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time back in 2020. Her new novel, first published for some reason in German, appears under the auspices of an independent outfit from Glasgow rather than her long-term sponsors, Messrs Jonathan Cape.
Alive in the Merciful Country is that most dreadful thing: a Covid novel, commencing in the early stages of the pandemic and featuring a middle-aged primary school teacher named Anna who lives near King’s Cross with her teenage son Paul. There is an old mother in a care home, a nice boyfriend called Francis living on the Scottish island of Colonsay (where she hopes one day to join him), online teaching duties, massive amounts of existential disquiet once the cyber-tuition is done, and, amid the horrors of the present, a whole heap of trouble storming into view courtesy of the past.