{"title":"A.L. Kennedy","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"alive-in-the-merciful-country-by-al-kennedy-9781916812284","title":"Alive in the Merciful Country","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom 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.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAlive in the Merciful Country\u003c\/em\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47485775118572,"sku":"9781916812284","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781916812284-alive-in-the-merciful-country.jpg?v=1775715241"},{"product_id":"the-life-and-death-of-colonel-blimp-by-al-kennedy-9781838719104","title":"The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWinston Churchill hated \u003ci\u003eThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp\u003c\/i\u003e, and tried to have it banned when it was released in 1943. However, Martin Scorsese, a champion of directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, considers it a masterpiece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s a film about desires repressed in favour of worthless and unsatisfying ideals. It also explores how England dreamt of itself as a nation and how this dream disguised inadequacy and brutality in the clothes of honour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA. L. Kennedy, writing as a Scot, is fascinated by the nationalism which \u003ci\u003eThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp\u003c\/i\u003e explores. She finds human worth in the film and highlights the pathos of stifled emotions and unfulfilled lives. “If he is unaware of his passions,” she writes of Clive Candy, the film’s central figure, “this is because his pains have become habitual, a part of personality, and because he was never taught a language that could speak of emotions like pain.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis edition includes a foreword by the author exploring the film's continuing relevance in an age of Brexit, when English and British national identity are deeply contested concepts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47599576744172,"sku":"9781838719104","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781838719104-the-life-and-death-of-colonel-blimp.jpg?v=1777982061"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/a-l-kennedy-1.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}