Dark Roots
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
In these sublimely sophisticated tales, Cate Kennedy opens up worlds 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 married couple realise their too-tight wedding rings may symbolise wider aspects of their relationship. Heartbreaking, evocative and richly comic, Dark Roots unveils the traumas that incite us to desperate measures, and the coincidences that drive our lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Critically acclaimed in Australia, Kennedy made her first stateside splash last year in the New Yorker and now follows that up with this revelatory collection. Set mostly in unnamed Australian locales, the stories are particularly concerned with the plight of women in social arenas where they're expected to be less than stellar, often for the sake of male egos. "Seizure" chronicles a woman realizing her live-in boyfriend's emotional selfishness after she witnesses a kind stranger aid an epileptic man. "Wheelbarrow Thief" focuses on a beautiful, intelligent publicist who is reduced to a dinner party accessory by her professor boyfriend. And "The Testosterone Club" is a delicious revenge fantasy spearheaded by a wife who has had enough of her husband choosing his buddies over her. Other highlights include "Angel," in which a Vietnamese refugee dissects alienation in Australia while striving to take care of a child. The title story is a vivid dissection of the inner turmoil of a 39-year-old woman dating a 26-year-old-man. And the pi ce de r sistance? That would be "Soundtrack," an inspired, sublime take on family. Kennedy's prose walks the line between sparse and lush, and she trusts that her readers welcome well-articulated ideas balanced with reassuring doses of mystery.
