This novel is set in London during the pandemic. Anna McCormick is a Year 5 teacher at Oakwood Primary, although the lessons are online during lockdown. She lives with her adult son, Paul. She’s isolated from her prospective partner, FL. One of her lessons relates to the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin. She tells the class that they need to be wary of ‘Stiltskins’ – monsters who abuse their power (like she believes the government is doing).
Anna has also had a more personal experience with Stiltskins. In the ’80s she was part of a street theatre/improv/comedy collective called the UnRule OrKestrA, where her persona was Annanka Ladystrong: showing feats of strength in the personification of female empowerment. She was, however, still undone by a man, a Stiltskin who she calls ‘Buster’, who joined the troupe at the Edinburgh Fringe. It was only after the collective disbanded that they found out that Buster was an undercover policeman. Anna sees him again at court where five troupe members are on trial. He disappears again, leaving a manuscript detailing his past on her doorstop. This forms a separate narrative, and these sections sometimes read like a poor translation from an obscure language. (It’s uncertain why this was deemed necessary.)
Anna’s anger at Buster, and with the government’s handling of the pandemic, is obvious. The book has an awkward, staccato feel. It’s far too long to be this disjointed. There’s beautiful imagery which, in a way, makes the outcome sadder, as it’s easy to get itself lost in the frenzied rhythm of the book. At its heart, this novel is about trust, but should we trust the narrator, who sometimes cannot even trust herself?
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A. L. Kennedy has won a variety of UK and international book awards, including a Lannan Award, the Costa Prize, the Heinrich Heine Preis, the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rees Prize. She has twice been included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
She has written ten novels, one of which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, six short story collections, three books of non-fiction and three books for children. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Akademie der Kunst. She also writes for the stage, screen, TV and has created an extensive body of radio work including documentaries, monologues, dramas and essays. She also performs occasionally in one-person shows and as a stand-up comic.
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