Description

Sunday Times bestseller Tessa Hadley explores the big consequences of small events in this new collection

‘You’ve either got it or you haven’t. Hadley’s got it’ FINANCIAL TIMES

Heloise’s father died in a car crash when she was a little girl; at a dinner party in her forties, she meets someone connected to that long-ago tragedy. Janey’s bohemian mother plans to marry a man close to Janey’s own age – everything changes when an accident interrupts the wedding party. A daughter caring for her elderly mother during the pandemic becomes obsessed with the woman next door; in the wake of his best friend’s death, a man must reassess his affair with the friend’s wife. Teenager Cecilia wakes one morning on holiday with her parents in Florence and sees them for the first time through disenchanted eyes.

These stories illuminate the enduring conflicts between responsibility and freedom, power and desire, convention and subversion, reality, and dreams.

***A GUARDIAN AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023***
***ONE OF THE BBC’S ’25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023’***

Publisher Review

Any publication of hers, whether of short or long fiction, is cause for celebration for the pure pleasure of the prose * Financial Times * Tessa Hadley is my favourite author -- Kate Atkinson, author of Shrines of Gaiety I love Tessa Hadley's subtle, humane writing; no one understands better our inner lives, and the shifts of power and chance and desire which shape us -- Charlotte Mendelson, author of The Exhibitionist Tessa Hadley might be my new favourite writer. She just "gets" people, their flaws, their ignoble impulses, the transcendent moments -- Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups Tessa Hadley is my inspiration, my literary thrill, and my solace all at once. She is pure magic and After the Funeral is a triumph -- Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers Few writers since Elizabeth Bowen seem as able to slip so effortlessly between forms, and few have such precision and sheer command - on a tonal and emotional level, at the level of each sentence, and of the short story form. Tessa Hadley's stories are written with a captivating ease. As one of her own characters says of Madame Bovary, there is a ferocious pure aim to Hadley's words that goes right to the heart - of each story, and of this reader. She is truly a great writer and this is a stunning collection -- Lucy Caldwell, author of Intimacies She is one of the best fiction writers writing today -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah What a peerless writer Tessa Hadley is! I so enjoyed these beguiling, subtle stories, each one suggesting a world that lives long after one's closed the book -- Deborah Moggach, author of These Foolish Things Hadley takes on her subjects with such grace and insight, that reading her work makes you want to take notes on human behaviour. After the Funeral is magnetic, subtle and full of tensile strength -- Nikita Lalwani, author of You People Few writers give me such consistent pleasure -- Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth Hadley has mastered the art of illuminating those brief, commonplace domestic moments which pass without fanfare but create ripples which never subside... Irresistible fiction * Big Issue, *Summer Reads of 2023* *