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    The Past
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    The Past
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    The Past
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Past

    Written by Tessa Hadley

    Narrated by Antonia Beamish

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Three sisters and a brother meet up in their grandparents' old house for three long, hot summer weeks. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past, but now they may have to sell it. And under the idyllic surface, there are tensions. Secrets are uncovered and passions erupt as a way of life – bourgeois, literate, ritualised – winds down to its inevitable end.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateFeb 4, 2016
    ISBN9781510022287
    Unavailable
    The Past
    Author

    Tessa Hadley

    Tessa Hadley is the author of six highly acclaimed novels, including Clever Girl and The Past, as well as three short story collections, most recently Bad Dreams and Other Stories, which won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her stories appear regularly in The New Yorker; in 2016 she was awarded the Windham Campbell Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. She lives in London.

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    Reviews for The Past

    3.5/5

    144 ratings20 reviews

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    • 2/5
      The Past should definitely stay there. Thanks.
    • 4/5
      Better than Clever Girl - gentler, more insightful. A family gathers at their old family home; all together, their loves and losses add up to a compelling read, through the plot is not the point. This is an examination of who these people are and how they came to be that way. The prose is classy and clean, and the characters believable in their anxieties and joys.
    • 4/5
      I’m trying to branch out a little this year in my reading choices – not that I won’t still read my beloved historical fiction, but I want to try and stretch a little. This family drama is out of my usual reading box yet I was intrigued by its premise. It does have a touch of the historical to it so perhaps that is why it appealed…A family gathers in the ancestral home for what could possibly be the last time as it’s basically falling down and none with the money have the desire to fix it and none with the desire have the money. The siblings involved all bring various spouses/boyfriends and children so it’s a real gang showing up for the three weeks. At times tempers run as hot as the weather. As the children romp and play on the grounds they find something no children should ever have to see and it shatters the peace of their vacation.The Past is beautifully written and travels from current times into the past and back again with ease. Some of the plot points are familiar and I’ve seen them in other books but somehow due to the writing they seem new here. It’s not the kind of book where you find yourself turning the pages as fast as you can to find out how it is going to end. It’s more the kind of book you read more slowly and enjoy the world you are inhabiting even when it’s not a comfortable world. I suspect it would improve on a second reading.
    • 2/5
      This book felt like an utter waste of time. The prose while lovely, the story and characters were lifeless. I couldn't have cared any less what happened to them. There was a hint that something tragic had happened at the end but that too turned out to be incedibly dull.
    • 4/5
      I picked this up on the strength of a few friend reviews - my first experience of Tessa Hadley, and very unlikely to be the last. This is not a book that will add to the diversity of my reading - it is a subtle family story set among the English middle class, full of quiet pleasures. In a sense this reminded me of another book I read recently - How It All Began by Penelope Lively. Both are full of the sort of events that threaten more significance than what actually happens, but both are focused on the psychology of the characters and their interactions, and in both cases I felt that the writer liked her characters too much to do anything very nasty to them. This story falls into three sections. The first and last are set in the present, as four adult siblings spend what may be their last holiday at their grandparents' old house in South West England in a small village near the coast. The middle section is set many years earlier at a time when their mother took the first three of them to the same house while considering whether to leave the father. The story is full of humour and perceptive detail, and it flows in a very readable way. The setting is vividly described and the relationships and contrasting characters are finely drawn.
    • 2/5
      The Past should definitely stay there. Thanks.
    • 4/5
      This took me a minute to get into, because it's deceptively simple and slow-moving. A family of adult siblings meets up for a holiday in their old vacation home, which has fallen into disrepair. They're taking this holiday to decide whether to keep the home or sell it.

      What unfolds is a quietly beautiful portrayal of sibling relationships, intertwined with glimpses into intergenerational effects. The middle section of the book is a flashback to the previous generation, when the siblings are children and their mother is struggling to end her marriage and redefine her relationship with herparents. Parallels to the adult siblings' relationship with their own children are never expressly made, but they're there for the careful reader to uncover. Almost like an alternative to a session with your psychotherapist, The Past gently suggests that maybe there is more to most of us than meets the familial eye.
    • 4/5
      I had high hopes for this book but somehow it seemed to lack a follow through at the end. it just seemed to sort of stop, leaving several characters hanging---yes, sort of room for a sequel but it was a little of a struggle to get this far. I did enjoy the audio version read by Caroline Lennon.
    • 4/5
      The writing was really lovely and wonderful to read...however, the story line would get bogged down now and then. Three sisters and their brother, along with extended family go to their family cottage for three weeks to decide if they will keep it in the family or sell it.
    • 4/5
      I liked this very much—the family dynamics, the lovely descriptions of the natural world, the tiny details, all speak to such a carefully observant and non-judgmental eye. I'll have to find more of Hadley's, since this was my first of hers other than a New Yorker story or two.
    • 2/5
      This story about a family - 3 sisters and 1 brother, plus extended family - spending a 3-week-long vacation in a deteriorating country home in England was dismal and depressing. I will say, however, that some of the descriptive narrative was quite lovely, and that's about the only positive thing I can say about this book.
    • 2/5
      Crikey, how glad I was to get to the end of this book. It bored me to tears. Given the set-up - three sisters and a brother meet up for a holiday together with the brother's new wife and a few kids and teenagers - the possibilities for interesting interaction, dramatic goings on etc are endless. Did we get any? No. About the most dramatic thing that happens in the first half is a mishap with an iPhone (and the resolution to that didn't convince me either). I suppose if you find the characters likeable then you probably won't mind the endless descriptions of them peeling veg or other such mundane tasks, and you might not even be bothered that nothing of consequence ever seems to happen to them. Avenues of dramatic opportunity present themselves and are churlishly ignored in favour of more tedious description and navel gazing. You literally have all the drama encapsulated in the synopsis - for example "the children discover an ugly secret in a ruined cottage in the woods". Yes they do - and, erm, that's pretty much the end of it. I speed-read great chunks of it in a desperate lurch for the end, and boy was it a relief when I got there.
    • 4/5
      Such wise and lovely writing.
    • 4/5
      Quite a good book for me, but it seemed to finish in a bit of a hurry; and perhaps a little too neatly. I found all the characters to be all entirely believable - and interesting. I like stories about family interactions because these are important in my own life. This story added to my perspective on family & marriage relationships and the way we present ourselves to others
    • 3/5
      Love the cover--if only the story were as strong.As I read this novel, I felt such a sense of foreboding. Happy family, multiple generations, nosy neighbor, "the past", young lovers, missing dog, new wife, creepy cottage, old family home. What would go wrong? It felt creepy.In the end, not so much. Nothing particularly unusual (well maybe a touch). Maybe I read the foreboding into it? Meh.Actually, I think the cover introduces a bit of foreboding. Of the old, rundown, and overgrown cottage sort. Hmmm.
    • 4/5
      Some books are just meant to live in and enjoy. Such is Tessa Hadley's The Past.Four siblings arrive at various stopping places in their own lives to spend the annual three-week summer holiday in their late grandparents' country house. It was once the rectory. Just like the varying perspectives of the now middle-aged children, the connotations can be either bucolic fantasy retreat or the height of dreariness. Still, we are British and we will make the best of it.Harriet, the eldest, seems to live in her own universe without letting real life wear her down. Alice arrives determined that everyone will have a jolly time, including Kasim. He's the 20-year-old son of her former lover who has been talked into coming down to the country. Once he arrives, the lack of cell phone coverage is about the end of the world. That is, until Alice and Harriet's brother Roland arrives. Along for the ride are his intimidating, beautiful third wife and, more importantly to Kasim, 16-year-old Molly. Fran is the final sibling, bringing her younger children but unaccompanied by her husband.In other hands, this would be the set-up for farce or histronics. But Hadley has an assured, subtle hand in guiding her characters to arrive at realizations about themselves and those they love most. This is Alice Munro territory in the English countryside.For example, the way two of the sisters return to the rectory this summer recreates that feeling of returning somewhere so well known that it is a surprise to be back in the reality of what is remembered:Fran unlocked the front door and the sisters stood hesitating on the brink of the interior for a moment, preparing themselves, recognising what they had forgotten while they were away from it -- the under-earth smell of imprisoned air, something plaintive in the thin light of the hall with its grey and white tiled floor and thin old rugs faded to red-mud colour. There was always a moment of adjustment as the shabby, needy actuality of the place settled over their too-hopeful idea of it.Or this:... the past of the place enfolded them as soon as they arrived, they fell back inside its patterns and repetitions, absorbed into what had been done there before.This year, that will be true but not completely, as other things do happen.Fran's children make a grotesque discovery in an abandoned cottage that fascinates them. As their fascination continues, the realization of what they are doing is something they wrestle with. Kasim would love to make discoveries about Molly. Roland's Argentinian wife confides in a sister who thinks she is poised to make a discovery about herself. Discoveries about family letters are the source of friction and the siblings are unsure if it makes sense to sell the property, if they should sell the property or, for one, if they want the property sold because the money would come in awfully handy.The climax of the story and its resolutions feel real and right. Being able to enjoy a novel and say, "Oh yes, that's as it should be" was my reading experience here. There was even a To the Lighthouse moment that the tone of the work seemed to call for; to see it occur brought a small sigh of reading happiness.
    • 4/5
      I’m trying to branch out a little this year in my reading choices – not that I won’t still read my beloved historical fiction, but I want to try and stretch a little. This family drama is out of my usual reading box yet I was intrigued by its premise. It does have a touch of the historical to it so perhaps that is why it appealed…A family gathers in the ancestral home for what could possibly be the last time as it’s basically falling down and none with the money have the desire to fix it and none with the desire have the money. The siblings involved all bring various spouses/boyfriends and children so it’s a real gang showing up for the three weeks. At times tempers run as hot as the weather. As the children romp and play on the grounds they find something no children should ever have to see and it shatters the peace of their vacation.The Past is beautifully written and travels from current times into the past and back again with ease. Some of the plot points are familiar and I’ve seen them in other books but somehow due to the writing they seem new here. It’s not the kind of book where you find yourself turning the pages as fast as you can to find out how it is going to end. It’s more the kind of book you read more slowly and enjoy the world you are inhabiting even when it’s not a comfortable world. I suspect it would improve on a second reading.
    • 4/5
      Some books race along through a careening plot to their inevitable end. Others are more mesmeric, hypnotizing the reader with their feel rather than any internal movement. Tess Hadley, called one of Britain's pre-eminent contemporary writers is definitely more of the mesmeric bent. Her latest novel, The Past, is a domestic, character driven novel centered on four siblings who have returned to their grandparents' country home for a three week holiday to determine the fate of this house that keeps them so rooted together.Alice, the flaky, free-spirited one, arrives first with Kasim, the twenty year old son of her ex-boyfriend, in tow. True to her personality, having forgotten her keys, she takes Kasim for a ramble while she waits for the others to arrive. And they eventually do all arrive: Harriet, the serious oldest; Fran, with her young children Ivy and Arthur but without her musician husband; and Roland, the only brother, with his teenaged daughter Molly and his brand new third wife, Pilar, a glamorous and young Argentinian lawyer whose polish seems at odds with the homely, British surroundings and these middle aged British siblings. As the four siblings settle into what might be their last three weeks in the old house together, tensions and understated, half-forgotten, or ignored potentials simmer slowly underneath their every day interactions. The children are left to their own devices, exploring inside and out, making an unpleasant discovery that snags their imaginations, and witnessing and abetting, if not entirely understanding, the burgeoning sexual attraction between Kasim and Molly. Each of the characters stumbles, even in this familiar place and amongst family, their misunderstandings, small hurts and irritations, and speculations driving the story as much as their casual, familiar regard for each other.The novel is visually rich and descriptive, engaging all of the senses with its musty leaf mold and air of genteel decay weaving through the season, the house, and the relationships. The siblings are intricately bound up together and in their decision about the house. They both converge and diverge as adults here in this place. The three sectioned narrative, the present followed by a section set in the past and circling back to the present again, serves to ground the characters in their long held roles, adding depth to who they are as adults in the present. The story is a slow and torpid read but even in its slowness, there is a constant state of expectation that this overheated, blowsy summer will come to a sad and brittle end. Hadley's writing is sumptuous and decadent but the characters themselves, almost uninteresting by comparison with the natural world around the house, were overshadowed by the heavy inexorability of the outcome. The final scene in the novel is beautiful in its poignancy, skillfully hearkening back to the past that ties them all together, but not even the revelations and climaxes in the final third of the novel were enough to make for a plot of any sort. While beautifully written, there was no movement, just extended character development, and unfortunately that makes for a rather fatiguing read.
    • 3/5
      This novel is about the reunion of four siblings, but also about a house which has played a very important role in their lives and that now they are considering selling. Two parts of the novel are about the present, and the middle one is about the past, so that we can see how past and present intertwine. The novel is well written, but for some reason the plot didn’t grab me (and books with little action are perfectly fine with me). This shouldn’t have been necessary a problem in a book like this, in which the character’s study is much more important than the plot, but I’m afraid that I also had problems empathizing with the characters and believing some of their reactions. I had great expectations about this novel, but I finished it with a marked feeling of disappointment.
    • 2/5
      I tried and failed to engage with the very literary style of this book. This is my first Tessa Hadley book and so I didn't know what to expect. Being a story about a family meeting up for 3 weeks at their grandparents' former home I thought it might provide me with a heady saga of family tensions. That may, in fact, be what it is but I couldn't quite get past a group of characters that I felt nothing for and a storyline that went nowhere. This is also one of those books with no speech marks, just dashes. I don't particularly mind this but in this case I found it difficult sometimes to work out whether speech was continuing or not. I'm afraid this was a book I was glad to finish.