Paradise

Hannah Luckraft knows of paradise. It's hidden in the peace of open country, it's sweet on her lover's skin, it flavours every drink she's ever taken, but it never seems to stay. Almost 40 and with nothing to show for it, even Hannah is noticing that her lifestyle is not entirely sustainable: her subconscious is turning against her and it seems that her soul is a little unwell. Her family is wounded, her friends are frankly odd, her body is not as reliable as it once was. Robert, a dissolute dentist, appears to offer a love she can understand, but he may be one more symptom of the problem she must cure. From the northeast of Scotland to Dublin, from London to Montreal, to Budapest, British Columbia, and onwards, Hannah travels beyond her limits, beyond herself, in search of the ultimate altered state: the one where she can be happy -- her paradise. Incapable of writing a dull sentence, or of failing to balance the grim with the hilarious, the tender with the shocking, A. L. Kennedy has written an emotional and visceral tour de force. An achingly human portrait of failure that is also a comic triumph, a novel of dark extremes that is full of ravishing lyrical beauty, Paradise is the finest book yet by an extraordinarily gifted writer.


Genre: Literary Fiction