THE ENDING! I have no words actually.

I loved this so much. I definitely found it slow at times, but I think that helped to build the atmosphere and made me appreciate the faster bits so much more.

Somehow this was my first time reading Tessa Hadley, and I’m definitely going to read some more!

Thank you so much to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the arc. 🫶🏻

An exquisite evocation of time and place coupled with pin sharp depiction of the uncertainty of early adult hood. The Party pulls you into a life and remains with you long after reading.

This was a strange one. About two sisters at a party in post-war Bristol, it is clearly a well written book but leaves one with the question, “what was the point?”. The plot is cleverly crafted and family dynamics of working class families versus affluent ones at the times are captured perfectly. So are the ramifications of war on all families despite their financial differences. As the party progresses into debauchery and frivolousness, even intricate prose cannot rescue one from the unpleasantness of the ending. Was it meant to be about crawling through the muck of the party and coming out changed, about knowing how the other half lived, about gaining the experience to be immune to posh sensibilities? I have no idea but please let me know if you find out

To me it felt like that wondrous perspective imparted in the early hours after a bender, while the previous evening is already fading from your memory.

Thanks to Netgalley and Vintage books for an advance copy!

P.S That perspective is usually full of holes and falls like a block of cement on your foot by noon

It is a while since I read a work by Tessa Hadley, and I am glad I made it this novella, thanks to an ARC I received courtesy of the publishers and NetGalley. The Party transported me to 1950s Bristol, where sisters Moira and Evelyn are enjoying their university studies of French and art and also their first forays into womanhood. Over the course of not one, but three parties (a raucous dockside party, a stylish cocktail party, and a chaotic gathering at a dilapidated mansion house), the sisters not only emancipate themselves from their familial surroundings, but also learn lots about gender inequalities, class divides, and how to make their own moral choices. Warmly recommended, this novella is a window into female lives three quarters of a century ago.

I loved the other Tessa Hadley novels I've read, but this one didn't grab me. I was not particularly engaged with the characters and didn't really care what happened. But Hadley's writing is as wonderful as always. It's short (a novella) so perfect for anyone who wants to read well written short fiction.

I absolutely adore Tessa Hadley’s novels and so was excited to read The Party, a novella. It is the coming of age story of two sisters, Moria and Evelyn, set in 1950s Bristol.
I loved the post war setting and Hadley’s beautiful and descriptive writing completely transported me back to the 1950s. The characterisation of the two sisters was excellent and the author tells their story with insight and empathy.
A beautifully written novella that I would recommend for fans of the author or those new to her work.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

An evocative novella, perhaps a little slow at times, but with a sensational ending. For fans of Kate Atkinson and Claire Fuller.

A novella about two sisters in post-war Bristol, on the cusp of womanhood. Starting off at a party and moving onto a cocktail party, the sisters find everything changing over just a few days.

Having so enjoyed reading Free Love, I was looking forward to this new novel. I had so enjoyed the descriptive writing and the characters which appeared in Free Love, and I was looking forward to more of the same. The Party however did not grab me. I did not feel connected to the characters and was not very interested in what they where doing. I am over half way through and have put it down, deciding to try it another time. It may be that the characters in the other novel where nearer my own age, and therefore easier to relate to....? I don't know, but the wonderful descriptions weren't there for me.

A powerful story about two sisters, Moira and Evelyn, in post-war Bristol. Over a few days, the sisters attend parties, meet intriguing but unsuitable men, and start to learn about adulthood, class, and relationships.

The book is beautifully written, with vivid descriptions that bring the time and place to life. The story focuses more on the sisters’ thoughts and experiences than on big events.
This was a quick, memorable read that will stay with you long after you put it down.

The Party is a thoughtful and emotional exploration of sisterly relationships and misplaced desire. It is a short but powerful story, looking at youthful desire and the fickle nature of people. Whilst not long enough to be truly engaging for me, ending before I had a real chance to connect with any of the characters, it was a well written novella and I enjoyed the story.

An enjoyable novella that I read in one afternoon. Hadley has a way of making the ordinary extra ordinary. Really enjoyed her writing in this.
A story of two sisters and two parties they attend, meeting men that are not suitable for them. Set in post war Bristol.

This novella follows sisters Moira and Evelyn as they sneak off to a party in post-war Bristol. There, they meet two men and it is clear there's a class division. Packed with lovely 'full' descriptions, I felt there was an unnecessary use of almost archaic language and French inserts. Was this to create an obvious class divide and commentary? It took me out of the scene. There's an interesting and too-deliberate commentary on class, religion, family and aspiration here, but it's lost amongst vapid and hollow characters who are fairly dull upon examination.

Two sisters in post-war Bristol try to navigate the class divide of studying art and French while living at home with their parents. Hadley’s storytelling feels safe and comforting, and I did love this, although the ending was a little bit on the farcical side like a good episode of Frasier.

Evelyn and her older sister, Moira in post-war, working class Bristol try out relationships. This subtle story looks at the culture clash of class - both girls are attracted but also repelled by men they meet. We follow the story from Evelyn's point of view as she's introduced to the adult world of alcohol and sex by her more worldly sister.

Tessa Hadley, whose writing I always love, has written a novella that captures the intense feelings of that liminal space where, as it seems to the sisters, they can experiment and try out new experiences, and nothing really matters but the joy of it all. Excellent.

A wonderful novella from Tessa Hadley, beautifully evocative of time and place. Although part of me would have liked it to be longer as the characters were ones I would happily have spent more time with, it actually is a perfect thing, that I will probably reread and definitely recommend.

After revisiting sexual relationships in the swinging 60s in Free Love, Tessa Hadley is looking back to the 1950s in her latest novella, The Party. It is called a novella simply because it is too short to be called a novel and too long for a short story!

Not to put too fine a point on it, the book tastefully (well, mostly) recounts the defloration of two gauche young sisters, Moira and Evelyn, by a sleazeball called Sinden at a party in a posh house, attended by some second-rate arty Bohemian people, and a few with money.

The sisters are bored with their family lives in suburban Bristol and attracted to art-school type Vincent and his parties. It’s all very mild stuff! Gin and Orange rather than drugs, jazz not rock, and bad dancing but the sisters have not been brought up to encounter and deal with the modern world, and life at home is full of dishonesty and evasions. Given a few drinks and their desire to find out what life is really all about, the loss of virginity, even as it is charmless, is inevitable.

You can start off thinking that maybe this is a bit autobiographical, as well as thinking that Tessa Hadley might be considered too old for that sort of smut but there’s more to it than that. It’s actually a fairly vicious critique of middle-class upbringing in the post-war years and the closed society of the nuclear family. Moira and Evelyn might consider themselves lucky that nothing worse happened to them!

Maybe it is also something to do with showing how the ‘Me-Too’ generation evolved or, perhaps, failed to learn about sex and relationships, sex and money and sex and exploitation just as their parents did. You can imagine Moira, a few years on, delighted that her young daughter has got a part-time job at Harrods!

Anyway, it is an interesting read, short but not insubstantial!

Such a beautiful cover, the book is very descriptive and immersive, you certainly feel like you are alongside the sisters as they weave their way to both social gatherings. I found I wasn't drawn in enough to care very much about any of the characters, which is a shame but as observational writing it is fascinating.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Only yesterday she had been an irrelevant child; how amazing to find herself now at life's code, the object of such brusque, blind, heedless, hungry pursuit, as if nothing else in the world mattered".

Tessa Hadley's novella The Party is split in two halves, the first detailing a party in a pub that naive, dreamy Evelyn sneaks out to to join her worldly older sister Moira at, and the second which deals with the aftermath. I say aftermath like something huge and dramatic happens, but rather this party allows Evelyn to draw a curtain back and start to experience adult life for the first time, which feels huge and dramatic for her. She and her sister, though in very different ways, want something to happen - an antidote to the powerlessness they both seem to feel in their own different ways, but never acknowledge.

The book is about access, in a lot of ways. Evelyn gains access to the world of grown women and, even more importantly to her, men, in this book, but we also see how people from different backgrounds come together at this would be bohemian gathering - Evelyn notes that the men can move between class and cultures somewhat more easily than she can. She feels very much an outsider looking in at much more interesting people, while also feeling a terrifying pull in another direction to what her life could be - her dejected, scorned mother or the lonely, frail old woman she calls to see.

Something I loved about this book is how it seems so simple, but there are moments of very careful and deliberate projecting of the narrative voice to somewhere in the future. It's mostly narrated pretty closely in the third person, but the reader seems to get glimpses of the older Evelyn looking back, or the current Evelyn predicting how she will look back on these moments, and this mirroring or doubling of herself in her own mind is such an interesting way of writing a character who does not yet know who she is becoming.

The Party is a convincing, if somewhat depressing, portrait of an intelligent girl on the cusp of adulthood just as the nineteen fifties are coming to a close. Intensely aware of the winds of change beginning to blow through the class-bound society in which she finds herself, Evelyn is determined to seek out new experiences at the house party to which her older sister has brought her; but is she simply allowing to herself to be used by the affluent and cynical older man who has taken a fancy to her?

There are times when I feel the reader is told too much about what Evelyn and her sister are thinking, leaving too little to the imagination. Nonetheless, Tessa Hadley’s writing is tremendously evocative of the period and you feel immersed in Evelyn’s world, sharing her frustrations and her longing for meaningful encounters.