SOURCE: Ashworth, Andrea. “Between the Perverse and the Proper.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4743 (25 February 1994): 19.

In the following review, Ashworth maintains that Kennedy illuminates common human experiences in Now That You're Back through her introspective and deft characterizations.

Like the telepathic heroine of “Christine”, A. L. Kennedy has a gift for getting inside people's heads. Following her first novel, Looking for the Possible Dance, this new collection of stories, Now That You're Back, dips once more into little lives brimming with big thoughts.

Kennedy's characters are studies in eccentricity and compulsion, variously embarked on convoluted quests for completeness and correspondence. As the drifter in “Failing to Fall” tells us: “I couldn't help looking for other taxis to see who was inside and if they were happy.” This search for connection and identity propels the stories and makes them compelling. Profound journeys develop out of nowhere as the characters wander...