I’m within 80 pages of the end of AL Kennedy’s Paradise, a novel narrated by Hannah Luckraft (a name that mingles hope with a presentiment of shipwreck), an alcoholic Scottish woman involved in a self-destructive relationship with a “dissolute dentist” (the fly-leaf’s description) Robert Gardener. It’s certainly not an easy read–as opposed to Consul’s lubricated, erudite ruminations in that great masterpiece of alcoholism, “Under the Volcano“, in which the reader is made complicit in Geoffrey’s sodden aloofness to the world’s tragedies and foibles, Hannah’s narrative makes the reader profoundly uneasy as she pitilessly checklists the degradations and humiliations she embraces as part of the drinker’s lot. It’s also a story soaked in shame–a shame that stems from the distance she has travelled from her middle-class family and reinforced by society’s traditional contempt of the drunken woman. While reading Hannah’s mosaic of partial memories–her recollection of the “sepulchral” baggage collection hall in Dublin airport is spot on, however–you’re inclined to hide your face in your hands. The jocular, first-person voice only ratchets up the apprehension, as it’s transparently a device to ignore the chasm yawning beneath. (For example, there’s a particularly gruelling, black-comic scene when an indifferent GP forces open Hannah’s jaws, which have been partially fused shut through alcoholic swelling.) Some times, however, the manic humour jars with a scrupulosity in choosing adjectives that has a whiff of writing-workshop craft. Moreover, I have a problem with the use of italics to indicate Hannah’s innermost self. This may seem pedantic, but to me using such typographical devices is lazy. Joyce didn’t need to use italics to suggest a stream of consciousness. The reasons are similar to those behind Nabokov’s well-known abhorrence of the exclamation mark–there’s no case for its proper usage. Either it’s simply tautological or trying to make up for the sentence’s failure–the words alone should bear the weight of meaning.