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

2000-10-06 An honest deal with the demons

With her latest novel ALKennedy moves into exploring the emotional silences we maintain that prevent so many relationships from fulfilling their potential.

Kennedy carefully weaves a number of separate short stories , which stand alone in the novel as well as acting as sequential chapters. Each "story" deals with the continuing theme of love denied or lost but from a different point of view.

The main protagonist, Nathan Staples, is an astonishingly painful portrayal of a middle-aged father who has made the decision to deny his love for his daughter in favour of maintaining the illusion of approval from his ex-wife for his actions. It is a decision ladened with an appalling emotional price.

In addition to the traditional triangular tangle between mother (who is largely absent in the writing) father and daughter, is a not so subtle underscoring of the price of becoming a writer, which the father is, and the daughter hopes to become. At times the plot is overstrained as father and daughter share increasing intimacy both through work and friendship. Credulity is stretched as we wonder how the daughter cannot know it is her own father she is dealing with. And yet how many secrets do each of us carry around successfully to survive?

Kennedy draws heavily on her own experiences to condemn the current publishing culture which burns out talent and crucifies the publishers themselves. Her bitterest comments are reserved for the seeming lottery which calls itself the authors prizes.

The writing is the typical mix of ALK's intelligent ambiguity: robust,rude,sensitive,insightful, sentimental and searing. She can do it all and still walk away with a unique voice that catches our unspoken fears in a way that few authors can.

This is easily her most powerful work to date and should be read by anyone who has lost a child through marriage, or has lost a loved one. The insights into the pain involved are both helpful and terrifyingly accurate.