Staff Pick
If this wasn’t a Tessa Hadley novel, it would be a soap opera: Discontented suburban wife leaves husband for younger man who turns out to be — I won’t spoil it. But since this is a Tessa Hadley novel, any silly sordidness is balanced by the characters’ self-awareness and bullish insistence on seeing things through. Hadley’s midcentury England, like her characters, is full of fascinating contradictions. Still pulling itself out from under World War II, while marching tensely into the postcolonial future, the families and places of Free Love are torn between the stolid comfort of class and convention and the chaos of cultural revolution. These aren’t new themes, but the grace Hadley bestows upon her characters in their messes, and the sheer perfection of her writing, make them revelatory. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"Tessa Hadley recruits admirers with each book. She writes with authority, and with delicacy: she explores nuance, but speaks plainly; she is one of those writers a reader trusts."--Hilary Mantel
From the bestselling author of Late in the Day and The Past comes a compulsive new novel about one woman's sexual and intellectual awakening in 1960s London.
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. Nothing in these ordinary lives is so ordinary after all, it turns out, as the family's upheaval mirrors the dramatic transformation of the society around them.
With scalpel-sharp insight, Tessa Hadley explores her characters' inner worlds, laying bare their fears and longings. Daring and sensual, Free Love is an irresistible exploration of romantic love, sexual freedom and living out the truest and most meaningful version of our selves - a novel that showcases Hadley's unrivaled ability to "put on paper a consciousness so visceral, so fully realized, it heightens and expands your own" (Lily King, author of Euphoria).
Synopsis
"Exquisite." --Minneapolis Star Tribune - "Brilliantly observed." -- People, Pick of the Week
"A beguiling novel, deceptively easy to read; beneath the surface swim disturbing and age-old questions about freedom and fate." -- Hilary Mantel
From the bestselling author of Late in the Day and The Past comes a compulsive new novel about one woman's sexual and intellectual awakening in 1960s London.
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. Nothing in these ordinary lives is so ordinary after all, it turns out, as the family's upheaval mirrors the dramatic transformation of the society around them.
With scalpel-sharp insight, Tessa Hadley explores her characters' inner worlds, laying bare their fears and longings. Daring and sensual, Free Love is an irresistible exploration of romantic love, sexual freedom and living out the truest and most meaningful version of our selves - a novel that showcases Hadley's unrivaled ability to "put on paper a consciousness so visceral, so fully realized, it heightens and expands your own" (Lily King, author of Euphoria).