`Darkly elegant...Hadley writes with grace and intensity, moving from careful, beautiful delineation of character and place...to moments of haunting power. She is brilliant, too, at offering us different perspectives' --Financial Times, December 13, 2010
`This beautifully evoked fourth novel is a further example of her talents' -- Literary Review, December 6, 2010
`By far the most interesting feature of Tessa Hadley's carefully sculpted novel is the way she enters so completely into her characters' private worlds of thought and action. The minds of Paul and Cora are so fully occupied by this most astute and sympathetic of writers, that the reader hardly questions their weirdest and least wise moves' --Guardian Review, January 7, 2011
`admirably concise and attentively detailed' --Sunday Times, January 7, 2011
`There is nothing rushed about Tessa Hadley's prose. The story unfurls gradually with an acute eye for humour, human foibles and emotional detail. Her writing is as deft as her story is compelling' --Easy Living, January 7, 2011
`Tessa Hadley's reputation has soared lately, The London Train shows why.' --Conde Nast Traveller, January 7, 2011
`The plot is nothing out of the ordinary, but the way she tells it is remarkable - so much so that you feel you're observing the lives of real people... The two halves of this novel are beautifully woven together; place bets now for the Orange prize' --The Times, January 7, 2011
`I would count this asymmetry among the novel's more mature virtues, which include absolute lack of predictability and scrupulous sincerity' --The Obeserver, January 11, 2011
`Hadley's strength lies in her characterisation...With characters like these Hadley makes us wonder what forms our own darkness takes' --Time Out, January 11, 2011
`Paul is utterly convincing, selfish, despicable, yet somehow likeable...it's an excellent, absorbing read' --Daily Mail, January 11, 2011
`What's so rewarding about Hadley's fiction: how she in points those unsettling moments which occur in everyday life and creates characters who outwardly appear to conform to a distinct personality type, only to twist- suddenly or subtly- against the reader's expectations.'
`I loved the realistic way in which they became different people in different contexts- something that doesn't happen often enough in fiction. Hadley has also created an excellent (and equally foxing) supporting cast'
`The elegant symmetry beneath The London Train keeps the randomness of the personalities on some kind of track. And although this is not a novel to suit those who like all their narratives to roll nearly into the buffers, it offers some first-class views on the psychological scenery of 21st-century Britain' --The Telegraph, January 18, 2011
`The novel is a triumph of form, gathering depth as the meaning of the second story, about Cora, develops in light of the first, about Paul.' --The Independent on Sunday, January 18, 2011
`She has a well-established gift for social observation, working by accretion rather than grand statement, and this novel contains many finely turned moments.' --TLS, January 18, 2011
`There is something reassuring yet deliciously unexpected about a Tessa Hadley novel.'
`Hadley is particularly adept at portraying a certain type of grown-up angst'
`Her balancing of contemporary issues and the life of the mind faultless'
--Seven Magazine(The Telegraph), January 18, 2011
"Tessa Hadley is an understated writer whose concentration on the details of everyday life belies a breathtaking acuity and articulateness."
"She once again visualizes the monochrome maundanity of ordinary existence in glorious Technicolor"
"Hadley captures shades of almost imperceptible grey that the reader only recognizes after reading"
"Hadley shows, with dizzying aplomb, that the distinction between "literary" fiction and the best domestic fiction is spurious." --The Independent, January 25, 2011
`serene style and carefully constructed scenes.' --TLS, January 25, 2011
`Hadley's shrewd observation gains in distinction with every book she writes.'
--The Independent,
'Is this a proper novel with a cohesive narrative or two separate interrelated stories? Probably the latter, but whatever, it's an excellent, absorbing read' --Daily Mail
`Tessa Hadley again demonstrates her skill at amplifying the details of lives' --Metro
`beautifully written and utterly absorbing, driven by a subtle, infectious curiosity about its characters and the sense they try to make of their lives' --The Lady
`Not nearly as well known as she ought to be, Tessa Hadley is a subtle mistress of British manners but, unlike so many modern novelists, has no shortage of empathy'
--Psychologies
`A beautifully observed and thoughtful novel'
--Woman & Home
