ABSTRACT
A. L. Kennedy is a prolific contemporary writer who is difficult to categorise. Often praised for her ease with postmodern literary strategies, including her metafictional preoccupations with the purpose of writing, such interpretation is often quickly qualified by reference to the ethical seriousness of her method and intent; her stylistic expertise is not ‘an empty technical exercise or a display of postmodern knowingness, but rather works in the service of some more traditional, humanistic purpose’. Kennedy herself often refers to her work process in terms of a revelation: ‘Writing is a complex sensual and spiritual experience of enormous power’, she has said, invoking issues of faith. Kennedy’s ‘deep realism’ begins with post-modern uncertainty but aims towards humanist stability; it counters unbearable anxiety with the achievable security of love. The frequent allusions to the ethical dimensions of Kennedy’s writing may produce the expectation of similar implications.
