Tuesday, February 02, 2016

2016 book 20

Tessa Hadley's The Past
Hadley's latest is one of those stories about a mildly dysfunctional British family--the four siblings, now grown, have reunited at their grandparents' house to decide what to do with it, and there are various relatives and hangers-on about the place. I /did/ wish that there wasn't so much involving a dead dog--like, I just could not deal with it, at all--and some of Hadley's writing is a little bit showy (plus she multiple times has people overhearing voices but not making out the words, it's a little repetitive). But the characters and their relationships are all compelling enough, and things improve when Hadley flashes back to the (titular?) past in the second half. This was interesting and enjoyable enough, it just feels like a lot of other books I've read before. B.

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