Nathan Staples is a writer; and while this presents him with many difficulties, it is comprehensively dwarfed by the overall mess of his life, in which only his dog understands him. Middle aged, down to one lung and abrasively living alone as the titular head of a small artistic colony settled on a Welsh island, he has decided to reclaim his daughter, now 19, whom he has not seen for 15 years, while continuing to mourn the loss of the wife who gave up on him. For all its emotional complexities and ambivalence, this sixth book and third novel from the gifted Scots writer A. L. Kennedy is her most straightforward to date.
At more than 500 pages, it is also her longest. Yet the strangest thing about this sprawling and episodic narrative, is that the overwhelming impression it creates is not of ambition, but rather of a confidence approaching self-regard. Here is a writer who, having previously dazzled with works such as So I Am Glad (1995) and Original Bliss (1997), has won the licence to do pretty much as she pleases. And it shows. In this age of value for money, publishers seem to have decided the bigger the better. It is a shaky logic.
As early as the opening pages, Staples is already busily chalking up another failed suicide. This time his failure to hang himself, which causes him to note "My stupid self in my stupid overalls - last things I'll see. He suddenly wished he was better dressed", leaves him relatively unscathed - except for the embarrassingly tell-tale burst blood vessels in his eyes. As a portrait of a man torn by shame, guilt and remorse, Staples never quite convinces. With the arrival of Mary, herself an aspiring writer, it seems salvation is at hand. Predictably, this is not quite the case as he is unable to tell her the truth. Raised by her loving gay uncle and his boyfriend, Mary seems remarkably well balanced considering her mother handed her over and disappeared from her life, aside from sending birthday cards and cheques.
It is her writing career, not her blood connection to Staples - of which she remains oblivious - which brings her to the colony. In order to pursue her craft she not only leaves "the uncles" who have excelled at parenting but also bids farewell to her adoring boyfriend Jonathan. Staples is, of course, besotted with his beautiful daughter; but he can't seem to speak to her. She is quickly drawn to him as a mentor, though there are underlying suggestions of something else.
THE other residents on the island prove a tormented bunch of dislikeable misfits respectively interested in chocolate, sex and sharks. Little about the ironically-titled, overly self-conscious Everything You Need engages and it seems possible that had Kennedy worked less hard at making the book so deliberately unsympathetic, it would have been more convincing. But then it probably would have ended up being a lot shorter. There is also the feeling that she is attempting a novel which owes far more to the US tradition than the British - and in writing what could be seen as a pale British variation of The Sports- writer, fails to achieve the consistency of tone which invariably makes American novels work.
While intrigued by Staples - his interest, his distance and particularly his unhappiness - Mary is preoccupied by her writing, which disimproves once she begins working under him. Throughout the book there are two Nathans: his prickly, unlovable public self and the other character, an offbeat, disorganised loser who spends much of his time engaged in tedious inner monologues during which he calls himself names, berates his cowardice and writes about himself..
These endless internal debates are repetitive. His confusions seem set to endure. By the end of the novel he has kept them intact. Aside from Staples's dilemma, and Mary's struggle to write a novel, Kennedy also takes a satirical, if factually-based look at the world of publishing, to which Nathan introduces Mary. Much of this is done through the bizarre personality of our anti-hero's long-time editor and pal, Jack, J.D. Grace, a multi-married editor of the old school complete with tweeds, a drink problem, women problems and an explicit sense of humour. Although barely sober most of the time, Jack is concerned by his buddy's inability to tell Mary the truth. He begins writing letters.
Considering the sheer eloquence of So I Am Glad, the story of a supernatural romance as told by a sympathetic and intelligent narrator who has spent much of her life wondering "why I always end up asking for answers I can't have", the inertia of Everything You Need ultimately irritates. As does the third person narrative voice. Much of the dialogue is forced, the prose crude and the thematic profundity false. Fiction is above moral judgments, but how could two parents persist in denying their child? Such fears aside, the real problem with the unconvincing Every- thing You Need is that the reader ends up not believing a word of it. Still, this is a hefty, comfortable made-for-Booker book and come September, Kennedy may well challenge Seth and Rushdie.
Eileen Battersby is an Irish Times journalist and critic
