Everything Will Be All Right: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Tessa Hadley (Author) "Pearl contemplates herself..." (more)
Key Phrases: smelting works, Uncle Dick, Amery James, Langham Road (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this complex, intelligent family epic, Hadley (Accidents in the Home) chronicles the lives of three generations of English women over four decades of social and political change. After her father is killed in WWII, 11-year-old Joyce and her mother, sister and brother go to live with Joyce's stern schoolteacher aunt and her aunt's family. Escaping from this cozy menagerie when she goes away to art college, Joyce, by now a striking, warmhearted redhead ("Men liked Joyce"), falls in love with her married professor, an intense painter who leaves his wife for her. Joyce adapts well to married life (like Mrs. Dalloway, she throws elaborate parties), but her marriage is less conventional than it seems. Her daughter Zoe, quieter and more self-contained, does well at school and goes away to Cambridge, where she studies history and embarks on a tormented relationship with clever, rigid Simon ("you know he never touched me-I mean, literally, even with his hand-except when he wanted to make love to me"). Against Simon's wishes, Zoe has his baby, but shortly after Pearl's birth Zoe leaves him, making a life for herself as a successful conflict expert and academic. Pearl, Zoe's rebellious daughter, has Joyce's red hair but is defiantly herself, reveling in disorder and roving with gangs of friends. The novel itself is an unruly domestic tangle of family members, lovers and friends, crowded and intimate. Cutting abruptly across decades and then zeroing in on a few months or years in the life of its endearingly human protagonists, it expertly captures the texture of daily existence and the struggle of three memorable women to make their way in the world.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School--Hadley's domestic novel introduces readers to several generations of women, each one at work to gain independence, sort through personal chaos, and watch the succeeding children mature. The setting is England from the end of World War II through the present; great-aunt Vera and her sister Lil, grandmother Joyce, mother Zoe, and teenage Pearl each gets a whirl at center stage. The robust details of their lives offer a sensual understanding not only of each woman's immediate world, but also of the changes she experiences as she matures. Like Marianne Fredriksson's Hannah's Daughters (Ballantine, 1998), this multigenerational story has strong characters that are easy to differentiate. They invite readers to ally their sympathies with specific women among the cast, making this an easy entrée for book-discussion groups. The male characters are more than simply foils for the women; they, too, offer a spectrum of approaches to life and self-realization. Overall, there's much here to appeal to those who are more interested in social insight than romance.--Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (October 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805070656
• ISBN-13: 978-0805070651
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,520,400 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the great writers of our time, December 18, 2003

By A Customer

Tessa Hadley is a truly great writer, of the Alice Munro/William Trevor tradition, but with a slightly more modern sensibility. It's too bad not more people seem to have heard of her (she has published a good number of excellent stories in the New Yorker) but my guess is that will change over time. If you like intelligent women's fiction, read this author!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars compelling characterizations, February 13, 2005

By	Myfanwy Collins "Myfanwy" (New England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Tessa Hadley's Everything Will Be All Right is a lovely and compelling book. The narrative spans several decades in the lives of one family-and more specifically, in the lives of the women of the family. Three of the women in particular-Aunt Vera, the groundbreaking teacher; Joyce, the would-be artist; and Zoe, the brilliant scholar-lead us on the journey from post-WWII England to present. What we learn is that as the world around them changes at ever increasing speed, this family stays the same, particularly in their eventual acceptance of each other and in their gravitation to the the center--the women.

Hadley's writing is clear and often beautiful without being over the top, but the mastery of this novel is her ability to create and maintain characters. They simply live and breathe and stay in the room with the reader long after the book is finished. I was taken with this book from first word to last and would recommend it without reservation.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything Will Be All Right, March 20, 2004

By	Simone Macaulay "simone_rox_your_sox" (London, England) - See all my reviews

Tessa Hadley turns out an evocative, clever romp of a novel... this book had me eager to keep turning pages. Everything Will Be All Right is interesting, exciting, and thought-provoking.

I could really relate to Hadley's characters. I felt totally like I could relate to them, could feel their struggles and emotions.

I recommend this book highly-- pick it up today if you want a fun, fast, exciting read!