The essay should establish an appropriate critical context and be properly referenced (including bibliography).
Some starting points for critical material:
• Biswell, Andrew, ‘A. L. Kennedy’, in Merritt Mosely (ed.), British and Irish Novelists Since 1960 (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2003), pp. 196-204
• Gefou-Madianou, Dimitra (ed.), Alcohol, Gender and Culture (London: Routledge, 1992)
• Scanlon, Julie, ‘Unruly Novels, Unruly Selves’, Madelena Gonzalez (ed.), Generic Instability and Identity in the Contemporary Novel (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 139-59.