Everything Will Be All Right: A Novel

By Tessa Hadley

Book Overview

The profoundly different choices of a mother and her daughter infuse this rich, expansive novel with both intimate detail and wide resonance When Joyce Stevenson is thirteen, her family moves to the south of England to live with their aunt Vera. Joyce's mother, Lil, is a widow; Vera has a husband who keeps his suits in the wardrobe but spends evenings at another house nearby. While the two sisters couldn't be more different-Vera, a teacher, has unquestioning belief in the powers of education and reason; Lil puts her faith in s?ances-they work together to form a tight-knit family. Joyce sees that there is something missing in their lives: men. She doesn't want to end up like her aunt Vera, rejected by her husband. Joyce discovers art at school: she falls in love with the Impressionists and, eventually, with one of her teachers. In spite of the temptations of the sixties, she is determined to make her marriage and motherhood a success. When Joyce's daughter, Zoe, grows up and has a baby of her own, however, she proves to be impatient with domestic life and chooses a dramatically different path. Spanning five decades of extraordinary changes in women's lives, Everything Will Be All Right explores the complicated relationships of a family. The young ones of each generation are sure that they can correct the mistakes of their parents; the truth, of course, is more opaque. Intricate and insightful, Everything Will Be All Right firmly establishes Tessa Hadley among the great contemporary observers of the human mind and heart.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805070656
• ISBN13: 9780805070651
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.1" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

compelling characterizations

Tessa Hadley's Everything Will Be All Right is a lovely and compelling book. The narrative spans several decades in the lives of one family-and more specifically, in the lives of the women of the family. Three of the women in particular-Aunt Vera, the groundbreaking teacher; Joyce, the would-be artist; and Zoe, the brilliant scholar-lead us on the journey from post-WWII England to present. What we learn is that as the world around them changes at ever increasing speed, this family stays the same, particularly in their eventual acceptance of each other and in their gravitation to the the center--the women. Hadley's writing is clear and often beautiful without being over the top, but the mastery of this novel is her ability to create and maintain characters. They simply live and breathe and stay in the room with the reader long after the book is finished. I was taken with this book from first word to last and would recommend it without reservation.

Everything Will Be All Right

Tessa Hadley turns out an evocative, clever romp of a novel... this book had me eager to keep turning pages. Everything Will Be All Right is interesting, exciting, and thought-provoking.I could really relate to Hadley's characters. I felt totally like I could relate to them, could feel their struggles and emotions.I recommend this book highly-- pick it up today if you want a fun, fast, exciting read!

one of the great writers of our time

Tessa Hadley is a truly great writer, of the Alice Munro/William Trevor tradition, but with a slightly more modern sensibility. It's too bad not more people seem to have heard of her (she has published a good number of excellent stories in the New Yorker) but my guess is that will change over time. If you like intelligent women's fiction, read this author!