Alive in the Merciful Country

"In the 1980s, Anna McCormick was an anti-nuclear peace activist. She was used to taking on those abusing their political power, but when she was targeted by abuse herself, it left a wound so deep it would still be reverberating through her life decades later. In 2020, Anna is teaching nine-year-olds on Zoom, navigating a relationship interrupted by enforced distance, and coping with a teenaged son who cannot leave the house. When an unstamped envelope arrives overnight, the traumatic past she had tried to bury begins to cast its own long shadow on the present"--

About the author

A.L. Kennedy was born in Dundee. and now divides her time between Scotland and the East Midlands. She 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 also performs occasionally in one-person shows and as a stand-up comic. 

Summary

From a Costa Book of the Year winner, Booker nominee and double Granta-selected Best Young British novelist comes a searing portrayal of the gradual uncovering of one woman's past psychological wounds, set in motion by the arrival of an unexpected letter.

Product details

• Authors: A. L. Kennedy
• Publisher: Pan macmillan Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.05.2025
• EAN: 9781916812284
• ISBN: 978-1-916812-28-4
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 33 mm
• Weight: 370 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Fiction: special features, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Thrillers / Psychological, Thriller / suspense, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Psychological thriller, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Narrative theme: social issues / social problems