Book Summary and Reviews of Married Love by Tessa Hadley

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Cathryn_Conroy

A Literary Delight: Smart Observations, Sophisticated Plots, and Lyrical Prose
From a 17-year-old girl who shocks her parents when she tells them she is marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather to a wealthy family gathering in the country for a birthday celebration during which a secret rendezvous takes place that will change all their lives, this book of a dozen short stories by British writer Tessa Hadley is a literary delight.

Some are emotionally searing, others are quietly insightful, and still others are charmingly quirky. All are brilliant observations on human nature, especially family life, among rich and poor, young and old, men and women. Almost all of them take place in the United Kingdom between the 1950s and the 2000s, although one is set in 1920.

Another thing they have in common is sex. A line in the story "She's the One" sums it up for the entire collection: "There was like a hum of sex in the air all the time."

But here is something some readers may not appreciate: Virtually all the stories end in such a way that forces the reader to imagine what happens next. The endings are rarely clear cut and final. As in, when you turn the page, you'll expect it to continue—but it doesn't.

Some of my favorites in addition to the two mentioned in the first sentence of this review:
• "The Trojan Prince": A 17-year-old boy who is struggling to figure out his life after school, tries to woo a wealthy a cousin, but things don't turn out the way he planned.

• "A Mouthful of Cut Glass": Neil and Sheila are college sweethearts, who come from very different backgrounds. Now it's time to meet each other's parents, and when they make the overnight visits, their relationship changes.

• "She's the One:" Ally is 22. Her younger brother died by suicide, and the family is an emotional wreck. Thinking she should stay at home now, she gets a job as an administrative assistant at a creative writing center. There she meets Hilda, a woman who is older than her mother, but the two strike up an unlikely friendship. And then Hilda tells her a disturbing story about her childhood.

• "Post Production": Borrowing a bit from "Hamlet" (by Tessa Hadley's own admission), this is the story of two brothers. Albert is a brilliant and revered film director. His younger brother Ben is his assistant. Albert dies. His widow, Lynne, and stepson, Tom, are devastated, relying on Ben for emotional support. But Tom becomes jealous of Ben, especially when he sees Ben has designs on his mother.

Smart observations, sophisticated plots, and lyrical prose combine to make this a remarkable collection of short stories.

Diane S.

Married love
These are very literary stories, and Hadley does a great job of noticing even the minutiae in the lives of her characters. She brings the readers attention to their surroundings and follows their lives longer than many short story writers do. Of course I had favorites and a few I could not relate to, but as a whole I enjoyed these stories of relationships god and bad.

Other books by Tessa Hadley at BookBrowse

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