Married Love

Few writers give me such consistent pleasure – Zadie SmithShe has such great psychological insights into human beings, which is rare. She is one of the best fiction writers writing today – Chimamanda Ngozie AdichieThe stories collected in Married Love tend to announced themselves with a crash … before resolving into quieter reflections, like musical overtures in which strings follow brass. Whether it is in examining the mellowing of a marriage in the title piece, or recounting the progress of a one night stand (“In the Cave”), Hadley writes of ordinary lives with a gracefulness unequalled among her peers * Independent on Sunday *Occasionally – very occasionally – a book feels like a gift, something unexpected, exhilarating, life-enhancing. Tessa Hadley’s second collection of short stories is such a book * The Times *One of the most subtle and sublime contemporary writers * Vogue *The most perceptive chronicler since George Eliot of avid, unworldly young women * Guardian *Hadley is a writer of exceptional intelligence and skill Only Alice Munro and Colm Toibin, among all the working short story writers I’m aware of, are so adept at portraying whole lives in a few thousand words. With Married Love, Hadley joins their company as one of the most clear-sighted chroniclers of contemporary emotional journeys * Observer *Tessa Hadley writes like a dream, the prose precise, but funny, too * Daily Mail *These stories are shored up with sentences and paragraphs that demand immediate re-reading for their cleverness and warmth…This party is well worth attending * Independent *This collection shows a writer quietly growing in style, perception and grace. She conveys to the reader that rare ability to see completely into someone else’s head * Spectator *

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.

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