Cate Kennedy

Amazing greys

The debut short-story collection by Australian writer Cate Kennedy—first introduced to Americans in a New Yorker story last year—exudes melancholy. You can almost see her characters’ preferred grey tones as they meander through various states of isolation, confusion and loss.

Stories frequently unfold with a lethargic tenor and a recounting of daily routines that lead to alarming decisions (murder, poisoning a spouse). Kennedy wishes these eruptions to seem logical and inevitable, a device that works well in “A Pitch Too High for the Human Ear.”

At her best, the English-born Kennedy allows us to peak into one side of an unraveling relationship—a disintegrating marriage, a deflowered lesbian affair, a May-December romance, and a refugee woman thrust into and out of motherhood.

Dark Roots could use a few more highlights like “Habit” and “The Testosterone Club,” where Kennedy’s understated humor and sarcasm seem like rays of light in her unrelenting greyscapes.