A great novel about the passage of time and how it transforms marriage and friendship, by Tessa Hadley, the best kept secret in British literature.
They have been inseparable friends for thirty years: Christine, the discreet painter; her husband Alex, a poet in his youth and now a school director; the successful art gallery owner Zachary and his sophisticated wife Lydia. One peaceful summer night, while listening to classical music in the living room of their London home, Christine and Alex receive a call; it is Lydia, upset, from the hospital: Zach has just died. The same feeling invades all three: they have lost the most generous and strong of the four, the anchor that kept them together, precisely the one they could not afford to lose. Heartbroken, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine, and in the months that follow, the loss, far from strengthening their bonds, brings to t...read more
