The Party, Tessa Hadley
Tessa Hadley has won much acclaim for her portrayals of intelligent women struggling to reconcile intellectual and artistic ambitions with a need for love. The Party, her thirteenth book and first novella, examines this topic from the perspective of two sisters living in 1950s Bristol. Evelyn is studying French at the university, and her older sister Moira is an art student. Both girls long to escape their ‘smothering’ family life and find romance and adventure. As a first step, they decide to attend an art students’ party at a ‘half-derelict old pub with a terrible reputation’ near Bristol Docks. There they meet the mysterious Paul and Sinden, who both repel and fascinate them. A few days later, despite a number of misgivings, they accept an invitation to visit the men at Paul’s suburban mansion. Their decision will have life-changing consequences for them both.
One of the chief pleasures of this novel is Hadley’s beautiful, painterly prose. Characters are brought to life in a few deft words: Sinden and Paul stand out at the pub due to their ‘mixture of ‘assurance and awkwardness’ and Moira captivates men through her ‘self-possession and sophisticated allure’. The descriptions of places are equally memorable, be it the grimy Steam Packet pub ‘hanging over the black water in the city docks’, the sisters’ cosy home imbued with the ‘savoury fatty fragrance’ of Sunday dinner, or the elegant suburb of Sneyd Park, whose big houses are ‘set secretively apart behind their high walls and gardens’.
Hadley’s other great triumph is her characterisation of Moira and Evelyn, both of whom are more complex than they initially seem. The apparently self-possessed Moira is gradually revealed to be anxious and self-doubting – and haunted by the recent death of a rejected former lover. However, the bookish, dreamy Evelyn emerges as the more resilient sister, as the novel’s startling final section demonstrates.
The Party’s weak spot is its ending, which feels surprisingly abrupt. I for one would have liked to learn more about the emotional effects of the sisters’ encounter with Sinden and Paul, and about how their lives might evolve thereafter. Perhaps Hadley will explore these topics in a sequel; her characters are certainly interesting enough to merit one.
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