An irresistible story about two sisters and a night that changes everything, from the master chronicler of our heart’s hidden desires
On a winter Saturday night in post-war Bristol, sisters Moira and Evelyn, on the cusp of adulthood, go to an art students’ party in a dockside pub; there they meet two men, Paul and Sinden, whose air of worldliness and sophistication both intrigues and repels them. Sinden calls a few days later to invite them over to the grand suburban mansion Paul shares with his brother and sister, and Moira accepts despite Evelyn’s misgivings.
As the night unfolds in this unfamiliar, glamorous new setting, the sisters learn things about themselves and each other that shock them, and release them into a new phase of their lives.
In this delightful novella of two young women coming of age, Tessa Hadley explores the ever-changing desires, the sudden revelations and the lasting mysteries that are bound up with who we are, and who we might become.
About the Author
Tessa Hadley is the author of eight highly praised novels: Accidents in the Home, which was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Everything Will Be All Right, The Master Bedroom, The London Train, Clever Girl, The Past, Late in the Day and Free Love, and four collections of stories: Sunstroke, Married Love, Bad Dreams and After the Funeral.
She won the Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction in 2016, The Past won the Hawthornden Prize for 2016 and she has twice been awarded the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, for 2018 and for 2024. Her stories appear regularly in the New Yorker.
Industry Reviews
Few writers give me such consistent pleasure
Zadie Smith, author White Teeth
Tessa Hadley recruits admirers with each book
Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall
She is one of the best fiction writers writing today
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Purple Hibiscus
The writer we didn’t know we were waiting for, until she arrived
Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren
Something small but perfectly formed will always do well as Christmas draws near – ask Claire Keegan – and Tessa Hadley’s novella The Party looks just the ticket.
Anthony Cummins, Observer
[An] exquisite work from one of our finest writers
i
The Party is a coming-of-age story humming with all the tightly packed resonances of a poem… Tessa Hadley is one of our finest chroniclers, and this novella is a glimmering, sensuous addition to her supremely elegant oeuvre
Financial Times
The novelist and short story writer Tessa Hadley is alternately beloved and teased for her focus on British middle-class life. But she does it so well… Hadley’s power is in the details
Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*
There is no-one who writes better about middle-class life in 20th- and 21st-century Britain than Tessa Hadley
Evening Standard
Though the book is short…Hadley’s touch [is] delicate as ever
Guardian
Hadley’s engaging new novella… [is a] deft tale of risk and possibility…teetering on the line between disaster and self-discovery…[told] with great and practiced skill
Times Literary Supplement
This exquisite novella…is the perfect stocking filler for fiction lovers
Good Housekeeping, *Christmas Gift Guide 2024*
Hadley’s writing has a classic, old-fashioned feel, capturing the quiet shift from youth to maturity as the story progresses
UK Press Syndication
Crackling with uneasy tension, it has a chilling, unexpected final twist
Lady, *Books of the Year*
Hadley proves her immense talent once again in this beautifully rendered novella
Daily Telegraph
Tessa Hadley is one of the finest English novelists at work today – and she deserves far more recognition than she gets… Everything [in The Party]…is sumptuously evoked
Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*
