Description

Discover the seductive novel about one woman’s sexual and intellectual awakening in 1960s London from the bestselling author of Late in the Day.

1967. While London comes alive with the new youth revolution, the suburban Fischer family seems to belong to an older world of conventional stability: pretty, dutiful homemaker Phyllis is married to Roger, a devoted father with a career in the Foreign Office. Their children are Colette, a bookish teenager, and Hugh, the golden boy.

But when the twenty-something son of an old friend pays the Fischers a visit one hot summer evening, and kisses Phyllis in the dark garden after dinner, something in her catches fire. Newly awake to the world, Phyllis makes a choice that defies all expectations of her as a wife and a mother.

With scalpel-sharp insight, Tessa Hadley explores her characters’ inner worlds, laying bare their fears and longings. Free Love is an irresistible exploration of romantic love, sexual freedom and living out the truest and most meaningful version of our lives.

‘Tessa Hadley might be my new favourite writer. She just ‘gets’ people, their flaws, their ignoble impulses, the transcendent moments… she is wonderful.’ Marian Keyes, author of Again, Rachel

Publisher Review

So real and humane and utterly transporting; fresh and yet, with the feeling of a beloved classic. -- Meg Mason, author of SORROW AND BLISS I utterly LOVED this book!!!!! Tessa Hadley might be my new favourite writer... she is wonderful. -- Marian Keyes A beguiling novel, deceptively easy to read; beneath the surface swim disturbing and age-old questions about freedom and fate. -- Hilary Mantel Tessa Hadley is my favourite author. -- Kate Atkinson Beautifully structured and brilliantly paced. It displays Tessa Hadley's extraordinary skill at making both surface life and deep interiors come fully alive. -- Colm Toibin I was utterly transported. Tessa Hadley is a true writer and this is such an enthralling novel, just so properly attentive to life. -- Sunjeev Sahota Tessa Hadley knows everything there is to know about the intricate, complex, contradictory workings of the human mind and heart. Her power to embed that understanding in unfailingly intelligent prose is unmatched in contemporary fiction. -- Neel Mukherjee Artful, profound and subtle . . . what a great writer she is. -- Geoff Dyer In keen, lush prose, Hadley conveys the many ways her characters delude themselves amid fraught relationships between parents and children as well as between lovers. The result is sumptuous and surprising. * Publishers Weekly *