Neatly navigating the ebbs and flows of the relationship between two couples as they weather the impact of a sudden tragedy on the ecosystem of their lives, Tessa Hadley has created a superbly nuanced portrait of friendship and marriage. Echoing the quiet, penetrating observation of Anita Brookner, Hadley writes with subtlety and great skill about the interplay between society, class, history and the passions that shape our everyday experience.
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been close friends since they first met in their twenties. Thirty years later Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead.
In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach was the sanest and kindest of them all, the irreplaceable one they couldn't afford to lose.
Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.
Late in the Day explores the tangled webs at the centre of our most intimate relationships, to expose how beneath the seemingly dependable arrangements we make for our lives lie infinite alternate configurations. Ingeniously moving between past and present and through the intricacies of her characters' thoughts and interactions, Tessa Hadley once again shows that she has become 'one of this country's great contemporary novelists.' (Anthony Quinn, The Guardian).
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781787331112
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 407 g
Dimensions: 222 x 144 x 29 mm
I must say that Tessa Hadley has great talent in bringing psychological insights into human relations. “ Late in the Day “ is the story of the complex relationship between two couples, when one of the partners dies,... More
A new Tessa Hadley novel is just a gorgeous literary treat (and actually I would buy this one just for the cover!). The prose has a kind of creamy deliciousness that needs to be savoured, slowly. The story opens with... More
This is a wonderful book that I thoroughly enjoyed.It centres on the lives of four friends after the untimely death of one of them. This death acts like a catalyst in bringing unfortunate truths to the surface and... More
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