Clever Girl

One woman's life, from childhood to middle age, by Britain's most acute, perceptive novelist of ordinary lives

Stella was a clever girl, everyone thought so. Living with her mother and rather unsatisfactory stepfather in suburban respectability she reads voraciously, smokes until her voice is hoarse and dreams of a less ordinary life. But these things come at a price and one that Stella despite all her cleverness doesn’t realise until it is too late.

The fifth novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Free Love, The Past and Late in the Day, Clever Girl is a tale of an ordinary life made extraordinary by the gifts of Tessa Hadley.

Stella was a clever girl, everyone thought so.

Living with her mother and rather unsatisfactory stepfather in suburban respectability she reads voraciously, smokes until her voice is hoarse and dreams of a less ordinary life. When she meets Val, he seems to her to embody everything she longs for - glamour, ideas, excitement and the thrill of the unknown. But these things come at a price and one that Stella despite all her cleverness doesn't realise until it is too late.

'Tessa Hadley writes like a dream' Daily Mail