Free Love: The exhilarating new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Late in the Day - Softcover

Hadley, Tessa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 152911523X ISBN 13: 9781529115239

Publisher: Vintage, 2023

Synopsis

As London comes alive with the 1960s youth revolution, one woman makes a choice that defies all expectations.

'So real and humane and utterly transporting' Meg Mason

It's 1967 and London is alive with the new youth revolution. In the suburbs, meanwhile, Phyllis Fischer inhabits a world of conventional stability. Married with two children, her life is both comfortable and predictable.

But when Nicky - a twenty-something friend of the family - visits one hot summer evening and kisses Phyllis in the dark of the garden, something in her catches fire. Newly awake to the world, Phyllis makes a choice that defies all expectations . . .

'Wonderful' Marian Keyes

'My favourite author' Kate Atkinson

'Achingly moving and real' Guardian

'Beguiling' Hilary Mantel

'Compelling' Elizabeth Day

'Will bring you to tears' Daily Mail

About this title

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, Free Love and three collections of stories, Sunstroke, Married Love and Bad Dreams. She won the Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction in 2016, The Past won the Hawthornden Prize for 2016, and Bad Dreams won the 2018 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her stories appear regularly in the New Yorker.

From the Back Cover

From Tessa Hadley, bestselling author of Late in the Day and The Past, comes a compulsive new novel about one woman's sexual and intellectual awakening in 1960s London

1967. While London comes alive with the new youth revolution, the suburban Fischer family seems to belong to an older world of conventional stability: pretty, dutiful homemaker Phyllis is married to Roger, a devoted father with a career in the Foreign Office. Their children are Colette, a bookish teenager, and Hugh, the golden boy.

But when the twenty-something son of an old friend pays the Fischers a visit one hot summer evening, and kisses Phyllis in the dark garden after dinner, something in her catches fire. Newly awake to the world, Phyllis makes a choice that defies all expectations of her as a wife and a mother. Nothing in these ordinary lives is so ordinary after all, it turns out, as the family's upheaval mirrors the dramatic transformation of the society around them.

With scalpel-sharp insight, Tessa Hadley explores her characters' inner worlds, laying bare their fears and longings. Daring and sensual, Free Love is a compulsive, irresistible exploration of romantic love, sexual freedom and living out the truest and most meaningful version of our lives.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 152911523X
• ISBN 13: 9781529115239
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320