The Past

Everything was changed by it, she thought… if she turned too quickly, or forgot to be cautious, then it jolted her all over again with its dirty news, its inadmissible truth. Four siblings meet at their family’s crumbling, neglected English holiday home for a long summer holiday. The house – dusty, worn, faded to comforting familiarity - nestles in lush countryside, enclosed in an apparently idyllic haven of dense forest and inviting near-wilderness. Middle sister Alice is nervous, helpless in the face of her own advancing years, still held by her younger self’s longing for some kind of fierce, passionate encounter. With her is her some-time step-son Kassim, intent on pursuing Alice’s teenage niece, Molly. Roland, the only brother, is accompanied by his recently acquired third wife, an obvious interloper. Weary, brittle and resentful Fran brings her children but not her errant husband.  Amidst their individual dramas, eldest sister Harriet, quiet and self-effacing, tries to navigate the erratic volatility of her siblings, entirely unprepared for the unexpected transformation awaiting her. As secrets bloom, brought into the sunlight, the past is sharply and starkly reanimated, shaking the foundations on which their fragile lives are built. Tessa Hadley’s latest novel is delicately crafted family drama at its richest and best. A small-canvas chronicle of human unravelling as, steadily, the everyday niceties are stripped away to reveal years of simmering frustration, heartache and regret. 'The way that a family expands and contracts over the decades, keeping its secrets, tending to its own, exposing its hypocrisies and closing over wounds, is shown with wisdom and clarity.' - The Independent