Tessa Hadley

Tessa Jane Hadley (born 28 February 1956; née Nichols) is a British author, who writes novels, short stories and nonfiction. Her writing is realistic and often focuses on family relationships. Her novels have twice reached the longlists of the Orange Prize and the Wales Book of the Year, and in 2016 she won the Hawthornden Prize, as well as one of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes for fiction. The Windham-Campbell judges describe her as "one of English's finest contemporary writers" and state that her writing "brilliantly illuminates ordinary lives with extraordinary prose that is superbly controlled, psychologically acute, and subtly powerful." She gained a BA in English followed by a PGCE at Clare College, Cambridge, and briefly taught at a comprehensive school before starting a family. The couple have three sons together, as well as three stepsons.

In 1993, when she was in her late thirties, Hadley studied for an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University College, which she was awarded in 1994, and gained a PhD at the University of the West of England in 1998; her PhD thesis is entitled "Pleasure and propriety in Henry James". Her first published novel, Accidents in the Home, written while bringing up her family, appeared in 2002 when she was 46. and is also a Fellow of The Welsh Academy. She is the chair of the New Welsh Reviews editorial board. BBC National Short Story Award (2011), and the Wellcome Book Prize (2016).

Fiction As of 2022, Hadley has published eight novels, as well as three short-story collections for adults and (with Eric Hadley) two for children. Her novels are realistic, set in Britain between 1950 and the present day, often in cities outside London, and feature comfortably middle-class characters, with a focus on women. They are frequently praised for their prose style as well as their psychological insight; the judges of the Windham–Campbell Prize, which she won in 2016, state that her writing "brilliantly illuminates ordinary lives with extraordinary prose that is superbly controlled, psychologically acute, and subtly powerful."

Accidents in the Home Her first novel, Accidents in the Home (2002), juxtaposes married motherhood with a glamorous London modelling career, and handles themes including adultery. The author Julie Myerson, writing in The Guardian, describes it as a "fantastically subtle, absorbing and insightful novel" masquerading as "chick-mum-sex-lit." which documents women's roles over the previous fifty years in its description of four generations of one family. The author Stevie Davies, in a review for The Independent, states that "Hadley reminds us of the remorselessness of time and the replaceability of selves;" she calls the novel "intriguing, complex and irritating" and praises its metaphorical use of historical detail.

The Master Bedroom The Master Bedroom (2007) focuses on a single character, a female academic in her mid-forties who leaves London to look after her elderly mother in Wales and finds herself sexually pursued by a teenager and his father. The novel explores early middle age, as well as the impact of mental deterioration. Briscoe, writing in The Guardian, highlights the novel's "stylistic and observational brilliance," but criticises Hadley for "refus[ing] to let dramatic action, an escalation of tension, or any other conventional narrative lubricant dictate the rhythms of everyday life," considering that "she exercises such restraint that her brilliance is ultimately muted." Hadley has stated that she conceived the two sections separately. Helen Brown, in a review for The Daily Telegraph, praises the novel's "elegant symmetry" and states that "it offers some first-class views on the psychological scenery of 21st-century Britain." The author Jean Thompson, writing for The New York Times, considers that the emphasis on the characters' thoughts might "muffle plot momentum" and challenges Hadley to "take a further step into the imaginative and transformational, into life that is not merely true but riveting and magical."

Clever Girl Clever Girl (2013), a first-person account of the life of a woman of fifty, "revives a very old genre, the female picaresque," exemplified by Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, but Claire Lowdon, in a review for the New Statesman, criticises it for lacking that novel's humour. The literary critic Elaine Showalter describes the novel's structure as a series of short stories – three chapters were published in The New Yorker in that form – and considers "the whole is less than the sum of the parts." James Kidd, writing in The Independent, states that it "slowly coalesces to form a mosaic of British life over the past 50 years." The Windham–Campbell judges describe the novel as having a "Chekhovian darkness: layers upon layers of secrets and strains that Hadley slowly, painstakingly excavates." The academic Christopher Stuart describes the book as having "a rare combination of clarity and complexity" and praises it for putting James's work into the context of both the Anglo-American and continental traditions; he also highlights the "very sensitive, and frequently brilliant, textual analysis" and the "sharp, accessible, witty prose".

Awards and honours

Guardian First Book Award longlist for Accidents in the Home (2002) Encore Award shortlist for Everything Will Be All Right (2005) O. Henry Prize for "The Card Trick" (2005) Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award longlist for Sunstroke and Other Stories (2007) Orange Prize longlist for The Master Bedroom (2008) Wales Book of the Year longlist for The Master Bedroom (2008) Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award longlist for Married Love Wales Book of the Year longlist for Clever Girl (2014) O. Henry Prize for "Valentine" (2014) Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for fiction (2016) Edge Hill Short Story Prize (2018) for Bad Dreams