Tessa Hadley is that rare thing, a quietly virtuoso writer, who thinks deeply about her craft and its relationship with traditions of realist fiction. THE LONDON TRAIN is shaped as a diptych, the two panels facing one another - but asymmetrically. It concerns an abortive love affair, between Paul and Cora, which began in a chance meeting on the London train - but the relationship is over when the novel opens and the first section, which is Paul's story, hardly mentions it. Only in Cora's story, which occupies the second panel, do we see retrospectively what lay hidden behind Paul's narrative.
So this is a novel of aftermaths and ambiguities: in each panel there are journeys to London, up and down the line; there are losses and disappearances. The characters are seen through a complex lens that registers their preoccupations, desires and choices when not in one another's orbit. This is a device as intelligent as it is elliptical, throwing the work of interpretation on to the reader. And the mesmerising,suspenseful puzzle of the novel stays with you long after you have put the novel down. Tessa Hadley is an accomplished writer of the short story - and the obliquity of her narrative owes something to the subtle craft of this form. On the level of characterisation, minor characters are peculiarly arresting: Paul's elder daughter, in her lonely, estranged and needy situation, making a demand on her father's heart that he is at last able to answer.
A lovely novel from one of our most distinguished writers.
Amazon Home
