City of Belmont - Ruth Faulkner Public Library

The past, Tessa Hadley

eng

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novels

The past

Tessa Hadley

Three adult sisters and their brother meet up at their grandparents' old cottage during one long, hot summer. The house is in need of expensive renovation, and the siblings must decide whether to commit the funds or sell up. But under the idyllic surface, tensions are growing. Alice has brought with her Kasim, the twenty-year-old son of her ex-boyfriend - who makes plans to seduce the quiet Molly, Roland's sixteen-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, Fran's young children uncover an ugly secret in a ruined cottage in the woods. Passion erupts where it's least expected, blasting the self-possession of Harriet, the eldest sister. And Roland has come with his new (third) wife, whom his sisters don't like. A way of life - bourgeois, literate, ritualised, Anglican - winds down to its inevitable end: both a loss and a release..