Alive in the Merciful Country

By: A.L. Kennedy

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Hardcover | 1 September 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover
416 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.7 x 12.9 x 3.18

Hardcover

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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.

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.

This is a twisty, heart-racing page-turner and an incisive look at the personal impact of the violence of the state, the police and the villains much closer to home.

Industry Reviews

'Kennedy is a force of nature.' -- New York Times
'It seems everything [Kennedy] touches turns to art ... she continues to impress with her psychological fearlessness and breathtaking affection for language.' -- New York Times
'A testament to the minor miracle of Kennedy's talent ... a talented stylist, her lyrical flights are often musical and rich.' -- New York Magazine
'A distinctive monument in the landscape of contemporary Scottish writing. Truthful, surprising and visceral, it provokes the sort of response that reminds us what fiction is for.' -- LA Times Review of Books, books of the year
'Kennedy does bleak the way the Russians do epic; unremittingly, awesomely and undershot with redeeming humour' -- Sunday Times
'Kennedy brilliantly interweaves over-wrought internal dialogue with external outrageous acts. The unfolding tenderness of nature and of amity blend superbly with the casualness of daily horror.' -- Independent on Sunday
'Kennedy is a superb writer and the canniness of her observation keeps you reading' -- Sunday Times
'Kennedy's exquisite blending of the limits of pain and courage recall Primo Levi.' -- Financial Times

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