num_pages: 182
description: Devastating evocative and richly comic Dark Roots deftly unveils the traumas that incite us to desperate measures and the coincidences that drive our lives. This arresting collection introduces a new master of the short story.Following her American debut in The New Yorker Australian Cate Kennedy delivers a mesmerizing collection of award-winning stories that daringly travel to the deepest depths of the human psyche. In this sublimely sophisticated and compulsively readable collection Kennedy opens up worlds of finely observed detail to explore the collision between simmering inner lives the cold outside world and the hidden motivations that propel us all to act. In just a few pages Kennedy captures entire lives expertly documenting the risks and compromises made in both forging and escaping relationships. Her stories are populated by people on the brink: whether its a woman floundering with her own loss and emotional immobility as her lover lies in a coma; a neglected wife who cannot convince her husband of the truth about his two brutish shamelessly libidinous friends; or a married woman who comes to realize that her too-tight wedding ring isnt the only thing thats stuck in her relationship. Each character must make a choice and none is without consequenceeven the smallest decisions have the power to destroy or renew to recover and relinquish.
language: English
title: Dark Roots
publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat