Everything You Need - Softcover

Kennedy, A.L.

3.79

477 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099730618 ISBN 13: 9780099730613

Publisher: Vintage, 2000

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Paperback. Pages: 566 Publisher: Random House UK Nathan Staples is consumed by loathing and love in roughly equal measures. He is sustained only by his passionate devotion to his estranged wife. Maura. And their teenage daughter. Mary - whom he hasn't seen in fifteen years. and who thinks he's dead. When Nathan contrives to have Mary invited to the island where he lives in retreat. he sets in motion the possibility of telling her he is her father. and becoming complete again. The path to grace . however. is strewn with obstacles. The obsessive Island dwellers are trying to cure themselves through trial by extremity. while in London. Nathan's editor. only friend and one link with his literary career. is drinking himself into the ground. And Mary herself is torn between familial love for the two uncles who ought her up in loco parentis. and the beginnings of a romantic. sexual...

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Review:

Everything You Need, the new novel by Scottish writer AL Kennedy, is the story of Nathan Staples, a self-sabotaging, depleted novelist who lives in a writer's colony where he dreams of reunion with his estranged wife, Maura, and his daughter, Mary, who he's not seen for 15 years. Nathan contrives to have Mary, now 19, invited to join the colony where he can mentor her literary progress without telling her who he is. Mary, an independent and open young woman, has been lovingly raised by an extraordinary gay couple and is more than able to withstand Nathan's bullying irascibility and possessive, confused desire. Kennedy brilliantly teases out the dilemmas and dramas of his subterfuge as he attempts to redeem himself. Nathan, Mary and the five other writers are beautifully drawn and their claustrophobic reliance on each other is touching, cruel and true. Kennedy has a delightful ability to stretch words to new effect. The expressive tenderness in her handling of love, loss and recovery is robust, bracing and sometimes quaint. As Nathan teaches Mary how to avoid his mistakes, how to welcome "the anxious flex of ready words", Kennedy is clever to steer clear of the hackneyed dangers of author-prodigy dynamics and swerves into murkier emotional scapes. Despite a baggy middle and an underwriting of Maura, this is a splendid epic tale of the tricky and terrifying demands of love and of writing itself. --Cherry Smyth

Review:

"Full of the wittiest and most profound writing by one of the most accomplished authors in the UK." (Debbie Taylor Culture (Newcastle Journal))

"Magnificent. A wonderful and highly distinctive book" (Sunday Tribune)

"Kennedy has an exceptional gift for empathy and insight" (Scotland on Sunday)

"Completely wonderful. Grimly funny, wonderfully wise and ravishingly written" (Glasgow Herald)

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