In the Company of Angels

Starred review from October 12, 2009
It probably doesn't reflect glowingly on American expat Kennedy's native country that this watershed novel is the first to be published in the U.S. after a decade of acclaim abroad. Why it's taken so long is anyone's guess, as there's plenty to admire in the serpentine unwinding of troubled protagonists adrift in contemporary Copenhagen. First there's Bernardo “Nardo” Greene, a Chilean sifting through the torments he suffered at the hands of Pinochet's secret police with the help of his Danish therapist, Thorkild Kristensen, who acts as part-time narrator. Meanwhile, Michela Ibsen attempts to escape a history of abusive lovers, most recently, the psychopathically jealous Voss. Inquisitions into the nature of violence follow from Thorkild's private musings and from Michela's hospital-bound father, but it is in Nardo and Michela's cautious flirtation that the story's central problem—how do we exorcise patterns of abuse and arrive at what is worth loving in a world poisoned by cruelty?—is etched. Kennedy's respect for his characters and startlingly tender regard for basic humanity color what is in effect a high-concept love story resonant with, as Nardo says, “The produce... of our lives.”

December 15, 2009
Expatriate American author Kennedy finally gets the major U.S. release merited by his European reviews with this third volume of his Copenhagen Quartet.

Originally published in Ireland and Denmark as Greene's Summer in 2004, the novel is set, like its companions in the quartet, in the author's adopted home, Copenhagen. The central characters have both survived violence. Bernardo Greene was a teacher in Pinochet's Chile, imprisoned and tortured for sharing political poetry with his students. His therapist, who is also one of the narrators, must compel him to revisit the horrors he experienced in order to overcome them. Still wounded by domestic abuse and her daughter's suicide, Michela Ibsen tries to lose herself in the arms of a young lover, who is charming and devoted but also dangerously jealous. Nardo is captivated by Michela the first time he sees her, and the relationship that blossoms between these two damaged people forms the novel's core. Investigating the effects of brutality on the human soul, Kennedy does not allow himself to become overwhelmed by the subject's gravity. He does not preach or condemn; instead, he offers two exquisitely crafted characters a chance to explore the legacy of inhumanity and to enact a drama of resilience—redemption, even. While he was in prison, Nardo was visited by angels who told him that he would know love and beauty again. He emerges from his ordeal an angry, nihilistic man, but the transcendent possibility of hope is Kennedy's gift to his characters and his readers.

An artfully written story with a conscience.

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October 15, 2009
The award-winning author of over 20 books, Kennedy has not been widely read in his native America. In fact, this is the first volume of Kennedy's "Copenhagen Quartet," four independent novels set in the author's current hometown, to appear here. In this work, Chilean exile Bernardo Greene believes that after months of torture at the hands of the Pinochet regime, he was visited by angels who promised that he would survive to experience once again the sun on his face, beauty, and love. Greene is recovering and in therapy in Copenhagen when he meets Michela Ibsen, a Dane who is struggling to heal from domestic abuse and her daughter's suicide. VERDICT Kennedy writes with unusual insight and compassion, depicting the best and the worst of the human experience. His work may be new to U.S. readers, but it merits greater attention, and we should look forward to seeing the other three books in his quartet published here. A great choice for readers of literary fiction.Gwen Vredevoogd, Marymount Univ., Arlington, VA

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