Harare Review of Books

240 pages.

Expected publication date: July 11, 2023 (Knopf)

Fiction/short story collection.

There are authors whose writing is completely immersive, and Tessa Hadley turns out to be one of them. In this respect, and in the kind of fiction she writes here—which may be termed domestic horror—she reminds me of Shirley Jackson.

This is a collection of stories about the unsettling mundane, the slightly weird things that trigger an extra heartbeat in the banality of everyday life. It’s an examination of relationships—between sisters, mothers and their children, spouses, and exes. In one of the most striking stories (although they all appealed), a woman unexpectedly bumps into her ex, and when he invites her to come and see how he’s living now, their missed connections and deliberate obfuscation towards each other are revealed to us.

Hadley is astute in her dissection of human connections, and has a really lovely way with words. This was my first foray into her oeuvre, and I look forward to reading much more of her.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Knopf for this ARC.

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