SOURCE: Review of Indelible Acts, by A. L. Kennedy. Kirkus Reviews 71, no. 9 (1 May 2003): 631-32.

In the following review, the critic compliments Kennedy on her well-drawn characterizations in Indelible Acts.

The complications of loving and the pains of estrangement are explored with restrained wit and emotion in this new collection [Indelible Acts] from the prizewinning Scottish author (Everything You Need, 2001, etc.).

The weakest of these dozen stories are generally those that don't develop beyond core expressions of longing, regret, or resentment. “Not Anything to Do with Love,” for example, though beautifully written, amounts to little more than its unidentified narrator's reflections on a recently concluded love affair. “Touch Positive,” about a recently discarded husband losing himself in quotidian errands, and “Awaiting an Adverse Reaction,” in which a woman being inoculated before taking a foreign trip considers escape from her nondescript husband, seem equally thin. But the strength of the...