39 used & new from £0.01
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Accidents in the Home
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Accidents in the Home (Paperback)

by Tessa Hadley (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


4 new from £0.01 34 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £4.99
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 10 used & new from £0.13
Paperback (New edition) £6.99 £6.29 58 used & new from £0.01

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Everything Will be All Right

Everything Will be All Right

by Tessa Hadley
£13.59
The Master Bedroom

The Master Bedroom

by Tessa Hadley
2.8 out of 5 stars (4)  £5.02
Sunstroke and Other Stories

Sunstroke and Other Stories

by Tessa Hadley
2.5 out of 5 stars (2)  £7.19
Women Talking Dirty

Women Talking Dirty

by Isla Dewar
4.0 out of 5 stars (3)  £4.99
Home

Home

by Marilynne Robinson
3.4 out of 5 stars (26)  £3.99
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (21 Mar 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0224062301
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224062305
  • Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.4 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,089,596 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Review

"Surprising and rewarding...Hadley has pulled off an important and tricky task.... Not many books remind you so directly and forcefully that reading is about creating new ways of seeing the world."
--"New York Times Book Review"


Product Description

At the centre of Tessa Hadley's extraordinary first novel is Clare, a young mother of three, who finds that marriage to a good man no longer satisfies her and embarks headlong on a disastrous affair. Around her swirl several generations of her large, complex extended family. Every character in this book teeming with characters is soon as familiar as an old friend and after a few pages the reader is not looking in from the outside, but wholly immersed in a brilliantly realised fictional world. Accidents in the Home is the debut of a quite formidable fictional talent.
See all Product Description

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Accidents in the Home
59% buy the item featured on this page:
Accidents in the Home 3.5 out of 5 stars (6)
Everything Will be All Right
16% buy
Everything Will be All Right
£6.29
Sunstroke and Other Stories
14% buy
Sunstroke and Other Stories 2.5 out of 5 stars (2)
£7.19
The Master Bedroom
6% buy
The Master Bedroom 2.8 out of 5 stars (4)
£5.02
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fault lines in family relationships are revealed by fate., 17 May 2002
By A Customer
As an introduction to 'Accidents in the Home' we are provided with a helpful diagram illustrating the structure of the complicated family that is featured in the novel. When reading it, from time to time I referred back to this family tree, in order to make sure I understood the position of the main characters featured in each chapter. This was particularly helpful because of the way in which the novel is constructed - each of the chapters being almost a short story, some of which did not at first seem to be part of the continuity of the novel. Only towards the end of the book did it become clear how well the author had knitted them together to construct the whole. Each chapter, while featuring key incidents and different family members, contributed to the reader's understanding of the main protagonists. As in the best modern short stories, there were what seemed to be almost gratuitous additional observations, both to entertain the reader, and to enhance awareness of the context. The style is deceptively simple. The presentation suggests the influence of those earlier authors that the heroine is studying. Happily the author sufficiently distances herself from her characters that any excess of sympathy for them is avoided. I hope that if I suggest that 'sensitivity' is avoided this will be read as a compliment.
The men in the novel get rather a bad press. They seem to have a part to play, the possibly reluctant seducer whose influence remains but whose presence is dispensed with, the dull and worthy husband, the selfish old patriarch, and Graham Menges, the potter who almost by accident collects wives. The women may be more fully drawn, but they too seem to have little control over their destinies. One gravitates to various men; another seduces her friend's husband. The characters seem to have only limited ambition to take charge of their own circumstances. But Ms. Hadley seems fatalistically inclined, as the novel's title suggests, and will not permit any of her creations to act out of character.
The book is well worth reading. I felt as distanced from its milieu as I do from many Victorian novels, and rather relieved that this was the case. I am sure that any younger, female, reader would discover much to enjoy, and not a little to find disturbing, in this rewarding first novel.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Purposeless, 3 Aug 2002
By A Customer
Sorry, but I really couldn't understand the purpose of this story! All the way through the book I felt as if nothing significant was really happening and I felt completely unmoved by the whole thing after I had finished the last page. I understood the idea of two friends at opposite ends of the scale each envying the other's lifestyle, but nothing really came of it here. None of the characters were really very interesting and I'm glad the author included a family tree because I had to refer to it quite often after losing track of 'who was who' throughout the narrative. Also, what did happen to Euen in the end?
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Why is there all this hype about her?, 30 Jun 2006
By Mrs. H. C. Openshaw "Helen" (Cumbria, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Accidents in the Home (Paperback)
Having read the quotes from what I class as the 'good' newspapers, I thought I would be on to a winner with this book. How wrong could I be! The characters are totally unbelievable, and time jumps forward, with no explanation as to what has happened to the characters in the meantime. The sub-plot concerning other members of the family is boring and unecessary - I would have prefered to stick to the main plot and learn more about them. There is no character motivation - I found Claire's reasons to have an affair very wishy washy, and just plain annoying! I don't think there is any depth to the writing - I found it clunky and awkward.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Multiple families, many stories
In this novel the main character, Clare,'s narrative is only told in every other chapter. In the others, various members of her family (or rather, a group of families linked by... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Bob Ventos

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful web of complex relationships
Once I got over the first chapter (weak and tentative), I thought this was terrific stuff. Iris Murdoch written by Justin Cartwright in drag. Read more
Published on 16 Dec 2005

5.0 out of 5 stars I was very sorry to reach the end...
I really enjoyed this novel. The characters are very real and 'fleshed out'. The joy of reading the novel is the sharing of their experiences - pain, confusion and simple... Read more
Published on 29 Aug 2002

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.