Late in the Day

Tessa Hadley is one of our finest writers. The sensitivity of her psychological insight and understanding is unmatched by anyone writing today... [in Late in the Day], Hadley comes into her own. It’s glorious stuff: moving, beautiful and so enjoyable. All hail Queen Tessa! -- Robbie Millen and James Marriott * The Times *Books of the Year* *
Hadley’s wonderful tale [Late in the Day –] measured, ironic, disarmingly perceptive – picks up on all the contradictions of human existence. With Hadley, you know there’s an adult in the room. * Observer *
The quintessential domestic novel in the most elevated sense… excellently insightful on family dynamics andthe intricacies of close friendship. * The High Low podcast *
With each new book by Tessa Hadley, I grow more convinced that she’sone of the greatest stylists alive… her quietly elegant style and muted wit are triumphs… the everyday tragedies and betrayals of domestic life [are] rendered by Hadley’s prose into something extraordinary… The tone of Late in the Day is perhaps Hadley’s most delicate accomplishment. * Washington Post *
You know you are in safe hands with Tessa Hadley who, on a sheer sentence-by-sentence level, delivers more enjoyment than almost any other living writer... you'll be hanging on to every word. -- Claire Allfree * Daily Mail *The Best Holiday Reading* *
There may be no historical newness to women’s disenchantment with male authority, but it feels new to write about it with this much raw honesty… It’s to her great credit that Hadley manages to be old-fashioned and modernist and brilliantly postmodern all at once… Unlocking age-old mysteries in ways both revelatory and inevitable. We’ve seen this before, and we’ve never seen this before, and it’s spectacular. * New York Times *
My favourite novel of 2019 by a long way was Tessa Hadley's Late in the Day… Hadley is a beautifully descriptive writer and a penetrating observer of human nature. -- James Marriott * Sunday Times *Books of the Year* *
Like all Hadley’s novels, Late in the Day enthrals. * Tatler *
Tessa Hadley picks apart the stitches of marriage, friendship and self with an almost forensic curiosity [in Late in the Day], cementing her place as one of Britain's finest writers of contemporary fiction. * Vogue *
Hadley examines profound areas of life – friendship, marriage, parenthood, grief, love – with a delightful precision, hitting different nails on the head over and over again… Her novel is full of these piercing little moments of revelation… [because of] the crispness of Hadley’s narrative, and the wisdom of her observations: you trust her… [Late in the Day has] a touch of genius. * Mail on Sunday *
Another quiet masterpiece from a modern great. -- Robbie Millen and James Marriott * The Times *The Best Books of 2019* *
Tessa Hadley is one of your finest writers… [she] approaches her subjects with the sort of attention to detail that a Dutch Golden Age master might bring to a jug and a bowl of fruit… Hadley is the real deal. * The Times *
A real triumph… a very fine novel. * Radio 4, Saturday Review *
[Hadley] is a gifted anatomist of human relationships... Her particular genius lies in the elegance and precision with which she captures the fleeting emotion, the passing, indefinable perception or tiny epiphany. * Wall Street Journal *
I absolutely loved Tessa Hadley's Late in the Day… There are few British writers who are more acute at a micro-level on the psychology of their characters and I was completely engrossed by this novel. -- Andrew Holgate * Sunday Times *Books of the Year* *
I loved Tessa Hadley’s Late in the Day. Hadley brings the gifts of a still-life painter to her fiction yet manages to produce satisfying twists and turns to her storytelling. -- Melissa Benn * New Statesman, *Books of the Year* *
Hadley’s fiction — both long and short — has, with a delicious, detached clarity, observed the shape of relationships: their unconventionality, their transgressions. She is a superb stylist, with none of the pretensions that have latterly been attached to such a term: dispassionate, yet voluptuous in her prose. * Financial Times *
Hadley’s fiction — both long and short — has, with a delicious, detached clarity, observed the shape of relationships: their unconventionality, their transgressions. She is a superb stylist, with none of the pretensions that have latterly been attached to such a term: dispassionate, yet voluptuous in her prose. * Financial Times *
With masterly economy, the hallmark of her style… Hadley takes us back and forth in time, and her forensic dissection of friendship, marriage and grief is a mature work by a writer at the top of her game. * Daily Express *
Gorgeous, utterly absorbing… More than many of her contemporaries, the British writer Tessa Hadley understands that life is full of moments when the past presses up against the present, and when the present transforms the past. Her brilliantnew novel, Late in the Day, explores both with equal urgency. * Boston Globe *