Dark Roots
Stories
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-84354-640-5 (ISBN)
Description
Deftly evoking the strains of a dissolving relationship, or the ripple effect of a chance encounter, Cate Kennedy's crystalline collection opens up a world of finely observed detail. Her stories are populated by people at tipping points in their lives - moments that find them poised between a familiar past and an unfamiliar future. A cancer sufferer boards a plane with three kilos of cocaine in her luggage; a neglected wife plans an unsavoury revenge on her boorish husband; a woman helplessly watches her beloved partner slip into a coma. Each of these people must make a choice, and none is without consequence.
Dark Roots reveals the regrets, successes and unintended ironies created by life's coincidences. It is a bravura collection, by turns moving, richly comic and, above all, unerringly human.
Dark Roots reveals the regrets, successes and unintended ironies created by life's coincidences. It is a bravura collection, by turns moving, richly comic and, above all, unerringly human.
Reviews / Votes
'A major talent. Kennedy has a near pitch-perfect voice and a feeling for the precise moment when stars move in the cosmos.' * Peter Temple * Kennedy's prose, line by line, is sharp, evocative and often poetic, but the measured precision of her storytelling... the right thing at the right moment: that's what makes fiction feel like life. * New York Times * Terrific stories narrated with confidence and grace, switching with ease from a 10-year-old boy's voice to a grieving young woman's. Imaginative...lyrical... powerful. An exceptional writer. * Sunday Herald * Note-perfect, ironic, mischievous stories * The Times *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84354-640-5 (9781843546405)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Cate Kennedy is an award-winning writer who has twice won the Age short story competition. 'Cold Snap', which appears in Dark Roots, was published in the New Yorker. She is also the author of the travel memoir Sing and Don't Cry: A Mexican Journal and two poetry collections. She is currently at work on her first novel.