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What Becomes
 
 

What Becomes [Kindle Edition]

A. L. Kennedy
2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: £7.16 What's this?
Print List Price: £7.99
Kindle Price: £5.31 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Hardcover £14.44  
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Product Description

Review

`This collection of stories marshals all of Kennedy's qualities: unflinching insight, clear and spacious prose, and grave compassion.'
--Telegraph

Funny and furious, Kennedy's tales of floundering marriages and domestic disappointment follow an anarchic path of their own.
--The Independent

`Kennedy specialises in acute observations of thought...In this collection of short stories...to searing, painful and comic effect' --Daily Telegraph

`A virtuoso performance...like an album of brilliant songs you keep wanting to hear again'
--Independent on Sunday

'Touchy-feely it is not, but the humour, humanity and awareness make 'What Becomes' bigger on redemption than it would first appear' --Saturday Guardian

`Kennedy's superlative work always attracts admiration'
--The Herald

'Touchy-feely it is not, but the humour...and awareness make What Becomes bigger on redemption than it would... appear.' --Saturday Guardian

`Kennedy's remorselessly unsentimental short fictions are mostly powerful and are all pared to the bones in her habitual style.' -- Financial Times

`Carefully written and at times wickedly funny this is a lament to love lost.' -- Daily Express

Review

‘AL Kennedy manages to convey an edgy modernity within relatively standard narrative forms … written with the tonal meticulousness of genuine literature’ - Financial Times, Lionel Shriver

‘achieves more powerful gut punches in its 217 pages than many novels manage in triple the length…Kennedy has produced another stunning, impressive and genuinely enjoyable collection, hard not to be charmed by’ - Scotland on Sunday, Claire Sawers

‘achingly intimate, acutely observed stories from the Costa Book Award winner’ - Woman & Home, Fanny Blake

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 338 KB
  • Print Length: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage Digital (6 Oct 2009)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B0038LB4P8
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #69,986 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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More About the Author

A. L. Kennedy
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Dark and depressing 3 Aug 2011
By Clive A. H. Still TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very mixed bag of short stories, dark in content, depressing to read and not always clear in purpose. There are perhaps three or four which are of the standard one assoicates with this author but parts seem over-written (e.g. "blood ... large, symmetrically rounded drops indicative of low velocity and a perpendicular descent, and haloing every drop was a tiny flare of threads").

There are a few lines which will appeal to anyone who has dealt with children - the young boy, made to clean up before eating, "washing his hands with the air of a weary surgeon" or the mother who "wondered which of her threats they would remember, which would be useful and which scar".

The three most interesting stories are Marriage, which like a Roald Dahl story, holds its punch for the finale, As God Made Us, in which the author celebrates supportive male friendship, then twists the story savagely at the end and Another, the most optimistic of the twelve.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Claire
Format:Paperback
I bought this book at the Edinburgh book festival 2010, and have only got round to reading it now, since lending it to my daughter first. My daughter keeps books for a VERY long time!

Anyway, having read through the first 3 stories, I am quite bored. It seems to be nothing more than a collection of observational descriptions, and leaves me quite dissatisfied. I wanted stories that made me think, made me feel something......a connection.

This book makes me feel that it is based on a series of writing prompts given by a high school teacher.
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11 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A great collection of short and varied stories that each revealed a great deal about the characters involved. Thoughtful and well rounded stories that are quick to read and easy to pick up.
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