After the Funeral

Sunday Times bestseller Tessa Hadley explores the big consequences of small events in this new collection. "Tessa Hadley is my favourite author," says Kate Atkinson. Heloise's father died in a car crash when she was a little girl; at a dinner party in her forties, she meets someone connected to that long-ago tragedy. Janey's bohemian mother plans to marry a man close to Janey's own age—everything changes when an accident interrupts the wedding party. A daughter caring for her elderly mother during the pandemic becomes obsessed with the woman next door; in the wake of his best friend's death, a man must reassess his affair with the friend's wife. Teenager Cecilia wakes one morning on holiday with her parents in Florence and sees them for the first time through disenchanted eyes. These twelve stories plumb the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships. "Few writers give me such consistent pleasure," says Zadie Smith. "Hadley is fantastically inventive... A magnificent collection," states the Daily Telegraph. "Wonderful... The quality of suspense and satisfaction in Hadley's stories is miraculous," notes Vogue, Books of the Year.