We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time by A.L. Kennedy is an unflinching collection of short stories about life's small but defining moments.

This was an interesting collection of stories and for the most part, I did like them but I just found the whole collection, for the most part, a bit underwhelming in places. There were a few stories that stood out because of the topic or voice was interesting but the whole book felt disjointed when reading in one go.

Another brilliant collection of short stories from A L Kennedy. As regular readers of her work have come to expect they are beautifully told with great warmth and empathy, in language that is at once sparse and absolutely precise and yet also somehow deep and rich. A handful of tales of the small and often difficult moments in life.

'Tomorrow we'll fly back to our little island. We don't know what will save us there. We'll want to save each other, be the saving of each other. We'll hope to be lucky, lucky enough.
Tiny, tiny. Gentle, gentle. Lucky, lucky.
We are attempting to survive our time.'

As the world asks itself everyday how we are to survive our time, this collection of short stories from A.L. Kennedy seems to be sneaking in under the radar. It deserves to be shouted from the roof tops. This is Kennedy at her darkly brilliant best.

A man helps a stranger at a busy London station, as she suffers a panic attack amidst the mass of people. A newly-married wife goes for a midnight walk around the town where she is on honeymoon, and a dark secret from her past reveals why she is already troubled by her marriage. A minor star who has made a calamitous mistake practices for the interviews, to herald his return, that will never come. A woman rants at a man whilst visiting Jersey Zoo, suddenly snapping in the face of his casual racism. A woman wakes in a strange place and, hearing a piano being tuned, suddenly remembers the horrors that have befallen her. A man whose child was killed in a hit and run incident plots his revenge on the world. A couple on holiday in Cologne have a massive argument in the cathedral and then make up, their relationship hanging in the balance. And so the stories go on...

In each of these twelve short stories Kennedy explores the darkness in modern life: abuse, wars and atrocities, death, loneliness and mental disintegration. As ever, she balances the lyrically sublime with the very darkest of material. The stories slowly reveal more and more about the characters, until suddenly you get what has triggered this moment of crisis, and the battle all of us have everyday simply to survive our time (if you don't get the reference you will when you get to the last story).

I fully admit up front that I am a massive fan of A.L.Kennedy, who has written some of my very favourite novels over that last 20 years or so. This collection of stories is not an easy read, but will reward with its absolutely perfect balance of light and dark. At this moment of world-wide pandemic this is not 'escape fiction', but it conversely might just help. We do survive. We will survive our time. This is an important and beautiful collection and deserves - no, needs - to be read. Sublime.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)