Alison Croggon's weblog

Moral Hazard

A quick aside - yesterday I finally read Kate Jennings' novel Moral Hazard, which has been on my "to do" list for longer than I care to remember. Interesting that the review in Salon also feels it has to excavate this novel from a niche of "smallness", as I felt necessary, rightly or wrongly, with Mairead Byrne's work: there is clearly a weight of discourse which presses against works which concern themselves with the "personal", that realm construed as "feminine". It's a fine novel indeed, and I don't have much to add to what's been said, except to recommend it: it has a spare pitilessness of observation which permits writing of true, unsentimental compassion. It's not irrelevant here to note that Jennings is a poet.