A. L. Kennedy

A.L.Kennedy, What Becomes (Jonathan Cape)

A.L.Kennedy seems to continue to improve. If there are two distinct types of artist- those who develop and improve, and those who begin with a big impact and then try to repeat it with an ever diminishing set of returns= then the genuine artist is the first kind.

This collection of short stories aren't really stories, there isn't much in the way of plot. They are tableaux, scenes, meditations even. They are generally unhappy but one can't be sure that all of the characters could be quite perceptive enough to capture their own unhappiness with such a sympathetic and yet exact awareness as Kennedy's. The tone of much of the writing owes something to her other career as a stand-up comedian in that 'observational' genre,

his wife is a dead-eyed, organic hummus-producing marionette with a whispery, creepy laugh - but he'll have made her that way. And she'll have made him a sticky-handed fraud reliant on alcohol, golf and non-threatening porn.

Her overall view of humanity is sometimes not overwhelmingly generous. Beneath the grim ordinariness of the lives she describes is a terrifying isolation. But, in Marriages for example, it is possible for her characters to live with the ordinariness, the dissatisfaction and the isolation and somehow lyrically rise through it.

Relationships are not easy, they are partnerships between people who are 'meant to love' each other and whose formal relationship represents a duty. But, as in Another, she is aware that the ideal relationship exists at another level and is just occasionally possible. Downbeat though much of this collection is, it is never less than absorbing and entertaining because Kennedy has developed a lucid style and profound understanding of character. She is maturing into a fine writer, in places reminiscent of William Trevor whose characters live lives of quiet desperation. The title here brings to mind the old Motown classic What Becomes of the Brokenhearted but Kennedy's characters seem to be born broken hearted and their dreams of redemption are the lyricism that Kennedy's plain style prose creates.

You would expect this excellent book to collect a share of this year's prizes. Whether I could award it one ahead of the Ishiguro collection is hard to say but both will be worthy of as many gongs as they accumulate.