Four siblings reunite at their family’s old English holiday home in Hadley’s stunning mediation on the intricacies of human relationships and everyday life, crafted in crystalline and luminous prose.
Everything was changed by it, she thought… if she turned too quickly, or forgot to be cautious, then it jolted her all over again with its dirty news, its inadmissible truth.
Four siblings meet at their family’s crumbling, neglected English holiday home for a long summer holiday. The house – dusty, worn, faded to comforting familiarity - nestles in lush countryside, enclosed in an apparently idyllic haven of dense forest and inviting near-wilderness.
Middle sister Alice is nervous, helpless in the face of her own advancing years, still held by her younger self’s longing for some kind of fierce, passionate encounter. With her is her some-time step-son Kassim, intent on pursuing Alice’s teenage niece, Molly. Roland, the only brother, is accompanied by his recently acquired third wife, an obvious interloper. Weary, brittle and resentful Fran brings her children but not her errant husband. Amidst their individual dramas, eldest sister Harriet, quiet and self-effacing, tries to navigate the erratic volatility of her siblings, entirely unprepared for the unexpected transformation awaiting her.
As secrets bloom, brought into the sunlight, the past is sharply and starkly reanimated, shaking the foundations on which their fragile lives are built.
Tessa Hadley’s latest novel is delicately crafted family drama at its richest and best. A small-canvas chronicle of human unravelling as, steadily, the everyday niceties are stripped away to reveal years of simmering frustration, heartache and regret.
'The way that a family expands and contracts over the decades, keeping its secrets, tending to its own, exposing its hypocrisies and closing over wounds, is shown with wisdom and clarity.' - The Independent
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780099597469
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 255 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 23 mm
One of the best novels of 2016. - Ron Charles, Washington Post
I find Tessa Hadley’s work genuinely helpful, especially when it comes to the big subjects: love and marriage, the political versus the personal, children, friendship. And then there are the sentences themselves, so precise and beautiful, often sly, sometimes devastating, always expertly paced. Few writers give me such consistent pleasure. - Zadie Smith
She has such great psychological insights into human beings, which is rare. She is one of the best fiction writers writing today - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A new Tessa Hadley is a pleasure to be savoured… The Past is a hugely enjoyable and keenly intelligent novel, brimming with the vitality of unruly desire. - Sameer Rahim, four stars, Daily Telegraph
Hadley is an exquisite writer, with a fine eye for detail and a way of crafting sentences that make you stop and inhale - The Times
Tessa Hadley recruits admirers with each book. She writes with authority, and with delicacy: she explores nuance, but speaks plainly; she is one of those writers a reader trusts. - Hilary Mantel
Tessa Hadley has become one of this country’s great contemporary novelists. She is equipped with an armoury of techniques and skills that may yet secure her a position as the greatest of them. - Anthony Quinn, Guardian
My favourite contemporary novelist... Nobody explores the mystery of relationships better than Hadley. - Deborah Moggach
A masterful novel - Spectator
Tessa Hadley is funny, precise, sensuous, and one of the best writers of family life that you are ever likely to encounter – simultaneously sympathetic and penetrating - Daily Mail Books of the Year
She deserves all the prizes. Hadley is psychologically acute, drily witty and…absolutely wonderful on place - Observer
Splendid… Hadley’s gift for depicting the interior lives of children and adults rivals Ian McEwan’s - Chicago Tribune
Tessa Hadley excels at presenting the contrasting viewpoints of children, teenagers and adults, and her evocative descriptions of the English countryside are a delight. - Anthony Gardner, Mail on Sunday
Poetic, tender and full of wry humour. A delight - Sunday Mirror
Tender dissection of a certain sort of English middle-class life is magnificently done: half celebration, half elegy. - Phil Baker, Sunday Times
Tessa Hadley has an exquisite eye for detail. - Joanne Finney, Good Housekeeping
Full of wonders - Observer
A brilliant British take on two generations of family inhabiting the same house. - Tim Martin, Daily Telegraph
An astute and finely written novel - Stylist
Exquisite… For anyone who cherishes Anne Tyler and Alice Munro, the book offers similar deep pleasures. Hadley crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural.... Extraordinary - Washington Post
What does a poorly bookseller do when she can't go into work? She reads, of course. And she's currently reading our intriguing Book of The Month. From the very first moment of introduction, I feel that I... More
An enjoyable examination of family life and the ghosts that haunt it. It was a compulsive read and I really rooted for certain characters, especially Harriet. Now that I have finished the book I find that I still... More
I found the idea s in this book very moving, and it s was an intriguing read.
I recommend you to give this book a try..... white needle tea in hand in the sunshine.
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