Bad Dreams And Other Stories

"The 10 instantly immersive tales in Tessa Hadley’s latest meticulously observed collection zoom forward and back decades, resulting in rich complexity, breadth and satisfying closure – rare in short fiction. Hadley is especially drawn to regretted moments or subtly life-altering experiences: a bored 15-year-old girl’s disturbing sexual initiation back in the 1960s or an unhappy young wife’s awkward attempt to shed her sheltered innocence, which she sees as “a sign of something maimed or unfinished” in her. There’s nothing maimed or unfinished about these stories."