An author new to my must-read list...

...once I've finished Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy, that is. (Read the first book last summer, just started the second. There are few authors as amazingly rich in detail and insight as he is. And no, I still haven't read his "Snow Crash", the one that geeks always rave about.)

This new (to me) author is A.L. Kennedy, a novelist invariably characterized as "bleak", and now a sometime stand-up comedian. Ran across an article in the Arts section of one of my must-read online news sites, the UK's Guardian.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2042048,00.html

Almost immediately I felt an odd sense of familiarity and empathy with Alison Louise, as she prefers not to be called. (She makes a good point about separating the art from the artist:

''Never mind the work, let's review the author,' she has written scathingly about interviewers on her website. 'Someone who sits alone for a hours at a time, typing, must be really fascinating and it beats having to think about anything, doesn't it?''

and

'The authors I first loved all had initials - JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, E Nesbit, ee cummings - and I actively didn't want to know who they were or have them get in the way of my enjoying their story and their voice.' )

Too late for me, I guess; it's the sense of who she is or might be that's creating the initial impetus in me to read her work. We'll see if the work itself is compelling to me on its own. As I have a streak of bleak running through my own personality and my music, there's a good chance it will be.) She reminds me not only a bit of myself but also of another friend, a woman I'd lost touch with since my SF days - nearly ten years gone by - but recently reconnected with and was glad to find out was doing OK, with a good new partner. I was able to give us both some closure on some leftover unpleasantness connected with both our baggages at the time. Always nice when that's possible. Especially now when there is one case in my life where I'm pretty sure it's not.

Anyway, some more links on her:

http://living.scotsman.com/books.cfm?id=1067392006

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article697255.ece

http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1838932,00.html