The Master Bedroom: A Novel [Paperback]

Tessa Hadley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2008

After more than twenty years in London, Kate Flynn has abandoned her career as an academic, rented her apartment in the city, and moved back to live with her mother in the grand old house beside a lake where she grew up. Bored and lonely, Kate meets a childhood friend, David Roberts, at the opera. David is married, but Kate finds herself falling for him against her better judgment.

At the same time, David's seventeen-year-old son is visiting Kate's house in secret, attracted by her eccentricity, her wit, and her shelves full of old books and music. Though she knows the risks, Kate cannot quite resist either man. As both father and son set about their parallel courtships, Tessa Hadley's intricate, graceful novel discovers the anxieties of adulthood, and the hazards of refusing to grow up.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This dreamy and thoughtful third novel from Hadley (Everything Will Be Alright and Accidents in the Home) chronicles the slow-burning midlife crisis of Kate Flynn. A cigarette-smoking, high-heel–wearing Russian lit. prof, Kate has given up frittering among the London intelligentsia to move back to Wales and care for her aging mother, Billie. Against the backdrop of wintry Cardiff, Kate contends with her rekindled desire for David Roberts, now a married public health doctor. She simultaneously attempts to ward off the infatuated advances of David's teenage son, Jamie. As all concerned cavort provokingly, Hadley sympathizes with her quirky, stubborn characters and impulsive protagonist without excusing them, and the simmering love triangle between David, his son and Kate keeps the placid storytelling from falling into a meditative lull. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Dissipated and dreary, much like her family's ancestral estate in the Welsh countryside, Kate Flynn's life has slumped dangerously out of control. After jettisoning her once-promising academic career and intoxicating London lifestyle to return to Cardiff to care for her senile mother, Kate despairs of her self-imposed exile until a chance encounter with the brother of a childhood friend promises a glimmer of hope. For his part, David, too, suffers from a pervasive malaise: his first wife committed suicide; his second marriage is disintegrating; and his teenage son, Jamie, is growing increasingly secretive and distant. Introduced to Kate as someone who could tell him about the mother he never knew, Jamie is immediately attracted to Kate's sophisticated ways and soon insinuates himself into her bohemian home, where he unwittingly joins his father as a rival for her affections. Melancholy and starkly emotive, Hadley's enervating tale evokes the raw drama that lies at the emotional nexus between friends and lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children. Haggas, Carol
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Picador (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312427972
• ISBN-13: 978-0312427979
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,327 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slow burn of a read, August 10, 2007

By 

switterbug (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Master Bedroom: A Novel (Hardcover)

Hadley has a knack for the unreliable narrator. The truth of a character's life stays hidden even from the character, and yet the paradox is that it makes the character very naked. Although the title is steamy and probably will tease readers of mainstream cant--(writers like Jodi Pocault who write with cliches and cardboard characters), this is a richly textured novel not meant for folks who don't appreciate literature. If you like archetypes and soap-opera level writing, this isn't for you. If you like Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch, you might enjoy this book.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting romantic triangle, August 12, 2007

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Master Bedroom: A Novel (Hardcover)

After more than two decades in London's academic circle, Russian Literature professor Kate Flynn returns to her hometown of Cardiff, Wales to care for her aging mother, Billie. However, without her career or her literary friends, Kate feels somewhat out of place at home. When she meets childhood friend Dr. David Roberts at a concert, Kate is interested as she was attracted to him as a teen and apparently still is.

However, David is married to Suzie, whose recent behavior of vanishing for days and ignoring their children and him when she is home worries the family. He finds temporary sanctuary with Kate. David's seventeen-year-old son Jamie also finds comfort with Kate; as her artsy eccentricity makes her seem so much younger than his parents. As the two Roberts court Kate in their differing peculiar ways, she tries to keep the triangle from imploding.

This is an interesting romantic triangle starring three fully developed protagonists. Kate is the prime focus of the story line of a woman in a middle age crisis dealing with an older mom and no vocation to keep her mind from wandering. Adding to her being the star is obviously the two males who desire her while she wants the older one without harming the younger one. Fans of deep character studies will appreciate Tessa Hadley discerning look at a woman at the crossroads of her life.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 out of 5: An Intimate Masterpiece, August 6, 2008

By 

Gwendolyn Dawson "Literary License" (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Master Bedroom: A Novel (Paperback)

The Master Bedroom is an intimate drama centered on a middle-aged woman who becomes romantically entangled with a married man and his son during the year she returns to her childhood home to care for her elderly mother. Hadley excels at describing the small details of human interactions (the handshake that lingers longer than necessary, the purposeful brush of contact, the subtle change of voice). There aren't any soap operatic scenes in The Master Bedroom, but Hadley nevertheless creates a quiet kind of dramatic tension that quickly propels the plot. In addition to Hadley's narrative finesse, her well-crafted prose makes The Master Bedroom a joy to read. Highly recommended.