Claire Lowdon (2 May 2013), "Reviewed: Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley", New Statesman , retrieved 7 March 2016

Literary fiction, by which I mean fiction with skillful writing and deeper thoughts about life than so-called mainstream, commercial, or popular fiction, is my reading preference. I totally get it that it is not for everyone. The Past is highly literary. Set in a small British town, it moves at a slow pace with plenty of description of weather and place as well as a look at the inner lives of the characters. There is however plenty of tension in the story that builds to an unexpected climax.The effect of suddenly switching into the consciousness of these individuals when they were young children (just a baby in the case of Alice); with their mother, alive here, young and strong, is moving. Where we might have been impatient with dreamy Alice (well-named) for instance, now we see through her mother’s eyes her first clambering steps to independence when she escapes her cot and arrives on the threshold of her mother’s room: ‘in her sagging night-nappy…staring solemnly, as if she wasn’t sure what she might find, in a world no one had prepared for her.’ Heartrending when we know already what Alice finds later in life. And bitter, mixed-up Harriet, now before us, a small girl who, her Grandmother realises, is not the adored child, expected only to be ‘sensible’. And Roland, being a 1960s boy, is the one singled out for future intellectual endeavours, later discovered desperately trying to read Herodotus ‘in the original’, opened ‘across his scabby knees’. a b c Gwen Davies (2011), "Interview by Gwen Davies", New Welsh Review (94) , retrieved 7 March 2016 It took me some time to get to her, but oh, what an absolute gift this reading was. I have NO idea what all these "reviewers" on Goodreads are complaining about. Don't even get me started. Seriously. I can't. The three-part structure of Hadley's novel, The Past (2015), mirrors Elizabeth Bowen's 1935 novel The House in Paris, with the central section set in the past. It features four middle-aged siblings (Alice, Harriet, Fran and Roland) holidaying together at their rural childhood home, and explores sexual desire. [33] The Windham–Campbell judges describe the novel as having a "Chekhovian darkness: layers upon layers of secrets and strains that Hadley slowly, painstakingly excavates." [2] Nonfiction [ edit ]

The contrast of age and youth is insistent, and yet Hadley may also be making a deeper point about differences in male and female attitudes to the possibility of change. Whereas the men – a vicar-poet, a journalist, an academic – are often pompous and theoretical in their approach to life, the women are instinctively warmer, more grounded and open to forgiveness. While Tom talks with proprietary fervour about the revolution in Paris (“The children are tearing down the prison walls”), Jill can think only of the handsome old plane trees the students are cutting down. This, too, finds its echo in the way in which Alice mourns the loss of respect for everyday things: “I hate how we throw everything away now.” The sentiment will take on a larger significance as the family debates whether they can bear to sell the house, decrepit yet full to bursting with memories. With five novels and two collections of stories, Tessa Hadley has earned a reputation as a fiction writer of remarkable gifts. She brings all of her considerable skill and an irresistible setup to The Past, a novel in which three sisters, a brother, and their children assemble at their country house. Tessa Hadley is one of Britain's finest writers, an acute observer of character, time and place and the most published short story writer in the New Yorker in recent years.

In a sense this reminded me of another book I read recently - How It All Began by Penelope Lively. Both are full of the sort of events that threaten more significance than what actually happens, but both are focused on the psychology of the characters and their interactions, and in both cases I felt that the writer liked her characters too much to do anything very nasty to them. As the novel spans generations, it also intertwines concepts of heredity. Although a subplot--of Pilar’s possible origins related to the Argentine “Dirty War,” is partly peripheral, and only briefly explored, it also serves as a metaphor for the meaning of family, bloodlines, and the curse of the outlier, or to have competing loyalties. Also, it resonates with the pain of shameful secrets. Ma comunque, anche introducendo momenti ed episodi fuori dall’ordinario, Hadley non sa mai, sottolineo mai, avvicinarsi allo straordinario.

The Writers of Wales Database: Hadley, Eric, Literature Wales, archived from the original on 8 March 2016 , retrieved 5 March 2016 Este livro vai alternando entre o passado e o presente onde dá-nos a conhecer cada personagem intimamente. All-female shortlist for Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2012, Edge Hill University, 9 May 2012 , retrieved 6 March 2016 Tessa Hadley was born in Bristol in 1956. Her father Geoff Nichols was a teacher and amateur jazz trumpeter, and her mother Mary an amateur artist. [1] [3] [4] Her father's brother is the playwright Peter Nichols. [3] She gained a BA in English (1978) followed by a PGCE at Clare College, University of Cambridge, and briefly taught at a comprehensive school before starting a family. [1] [3] [5] In 1982 she married Eric Hadley, a teacher, lecturer and playwright, and they moved to Cardiff, where Eric Hadley taught at Cardiff University and the University of Wales Institute. [1] [6] [7] The couple have three sons together, as well as three stepsons. [1] [8] During this period, Hadley completed several novels but failed to find a publisher, and also co-authored two collections of short stories for children with her husband. [1] [4] a b Susanna Rustin (1 January 2011), "The London Train by Tessa Hadley – review", The Guardian , retrieved 7 March 2016At issue here is the house in the English countryside that may need to be sold, one that is rarely used. It has been in the Crane family for a while, but costs a small fortune to upkeep. Gathering there for three weeks together to discuss this uncomfortable and tension-mounting topic are the three middle-age sisters, Harriet, Alice, and Fran (only Fran is married, but her husband is not here with her children, and one wonders if there is some strain there), and the brother, Roland, with his third wife, a stunning, young, and intimidating Argentinian lawyer, Pilar, who makes the women feel quite dowdy in comparison. Alice also brings Kasim, the 20-year-old son of an ex-boyfriend, which is a feisty friction to upset the balance of sibling-ness, and to create frisson between Kasim and Roland’s teenage daughter, Molly. Moreover, the young and beautiful have brought pheromones into the house, which invariably provokes the envy and frustration of the sisters, some more than others. Too, the blossoming of young lust is igniting Harriet’s secrets, which she tries to keep hidden in a diary. She is almost acting like a teenager herself. Ma forse è che la grande lezione carveriana qui rimane disattesa: viva l’ordinario, questo sì, ma se lo si sa trasformare in straordinario. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009 [11] and is also a Fellow of The Welsh Academy. [12] She is the chair of the New Welsh Review 's editorial board. [4] [6] She has served as a judge for the International Dublin Literary Award (2011), [13] BBC National Short Story Award (2011), [14] O. Henry Prize for short stories (2015) [15] and the Wellcome Book Prize (2016). [16] Fiction [ edit ] As there is no real plotline the novel flows along with the interactions and the reflections of the characters on life and each other: We've all been there: the family reunion that's looked forward to but also dreaded. In Tessa Hadley's latest novel, THE PAST, she reunites four siblings at the ancestral home of their grandparents in the English countryside. The plan is to spend three relaxing weeks together while ultimately deciding what to do with the house which is badly in need of repairs.