SOURCE: Waugh, Teresa. “This Small Masterpiece.” Spectator 278, no. 8790 (18 January 1997): 35-6.

In the following review, Waugh observes that several of the short stories in Original Bliss are strangely disjointed and forgettable but maintains that the title story is extremely emotional and masterfully written.

Perhaps it has something to do with the time of year, with the crippling cold and all those horrible germs flying about, but it seems hard to concentrate on some of A. L. Kennedy's stories in her new collection, Original Bliss. You're not always sure where you are—or why you're there; there is even an unreal quality about the characters themselves, slightly drawn as they are, and with no indication of where they come from and little of what shaped them. They appear at times to be floating in space, somewhere just out of our reach. Yet that is perhaps exactly as we should perceive...