Sonnenstich

In Tessa Hadley's stories, it is the everyday events that prove to be extraordinary: Two young mothers spend the summer with their husbands and children in a cottage in the countryside and both begin to flirt with a mutual friend who is a doctor. A son confesses to his mother that he is cheating on his girlfriend. A student announces to her parents at the kitchen table that she will marry her professor. A teenager feels both overwhelmed and flattered by the advances of a married woman who presses closely against him on the beach. With her keen sense of the fractures in familial security, Tessa Hadley explores the major themes of life in eight stories, touching on friendship and love, sexuality and motherhood. Hadley challenges her characters, pulling them out of their daily routines and opening up paths to a new life of which they are still unaware. Emotional but not sentimental, and with a sharp eye for the crucial details, she provides deep insights into the complexity of human relationships and once again demonstrates that she is one of Britain's most important writers.