I really enjoyed Tessa Hadley’s novel. Told in two halves, the book initially concerns itself with Paul, a middle-aged man who we first meet dealing with the death of his mother, Evelyn. He lives in the Welsh countryside with his wife, Elise and their two young daughters, but he also has an older daughter, Pia who lives in London. When Pia leaves the home that she shares with her mother, Paul tries to find Pia and this involves coming to London.
The second half of the book is centred on Cora, a young woman who is working as a librarian and is married to Robert, who she met through her university friend, Frankie. Cora and Robert are in trouble and Cora’s story ostensibly deals with the breakdown of their relationship. Cora lives in her parents’ house in Cardiff, doing it up now that they have both passed away, whilst Robert has a job as a senior civil servant in London. It is Cora’s choice that they live separately.
Are the two characters in the book linked? Well, that is for you to discover when you read it.
If you are looking for a plot filled with action, you will not find it here. This book is a slow read in terms of plot development and evolution; however, Hadley’s prose is easy to read whilst grasping the deeper issues that plague people in life and is full of astute observations and ruminations, both in her third person narration but also in the thoughts of the characters themselves. She is a keen observer of human behaviour and its nuances as well as casting a light on the things that motivate people to act as they do. To do this and hold a reader’s attention is tricky especially as, really, the characters in this book are pretty unremarkable and it takes a very accomplished and confident writer to pull this off. Hadley is this, for sure, inciting and enticing interest through her word choices and her description.
What I will take away from my reading of this novel is knowledge of a new (to me) author whose other books I can look forward to exploring and hopefully enjoying, if not more, then, at least, in the same way as this one.
Scuffed Granny 