!960s Britain - some of the country are living it up whilst the vast majority are still living socially constrained 1950s lives. I very much enjoyed the writing - great characters, descriptions of their frustrations as well as the day to day living and the settings of middle class suburbia contrasting with bohemian London. The teenage daughter, Colette, was a highlight for me, seizing the opportunities presented by her wayward mother.

The plot slowed a little in the middle - but then a twist propels the tale on to a bittersweet ending. All in all a good read.

Free Love, published January 2022, covers ground that will be familiar to fans of Tessa Hadley's consistently brilliant novels and short stories. Her skill lies in the subtle way she dissects her characters' inner lives, exposing their fears and desires. I read an advance copy courtesy of Net Galley and wasn't disappointed. After struggling with my December Dickens (now in its sixth year) I abandoned Nicholas Nickleby until next December and tore through Free Love.

It's 1967 and the weather is hot; with the new youth revolution London is coming alive, but in the suburbs the conventional Fischer family hasn't changed. Pretty housewife, Phyllis is married to Roger, who has a good career in the Foreign Office but is dull to the point of boredom. Their plain daughter Colette loves books and Hugh is the favourite child, loved by his mother but destined to go away to school and forget her.

When the son of an old friend comes for dinner, and kisses Phyllis in the garden, she is transformed. Nothing for her is ever the same again: 'Under the placid surface of suburbia, something was unhinged.' Eventually Phyllis makes a choice totally against everything her upbringing has prepared her for. In this remarkable novel the upheaval in the family echoes the dramatic reinvention of society in the 1960s.

My thanks to Random House U.K. Vintage Books for an invitation to receive an advance review copy via NetGalley of ‘Free Love’ by Tessa Hadley.

I was invited by the publishers to read an advance review copy via NetGalley of ‘Free Love’ by Tessa Hadley.

In 1967 London may be swinging but the Fischer family appears to be part of an older world of conventional suburban stability. Roger works at the Foreign Office and his wife Phyllis is a homemaker. They have two children, bookish teenager Colette and 10-year old Hugh, who is on the verge of being sent away to boarding school.

When Nicky, the son of a family friend comes to dinner he and Phyllis share a passionate kiss. Something in Phyllis catches fire and soon she is leading a double life. She ultimately makes a decision that defies expectations of her as a wife and mother.

‘Free Love’ wasn’t a great success with me. Given the title, cover, and swinging sixties setting, I hadn’t expected a family drama about a married woman’s midlife crisis. I found I had little sympathy for Phyllis and her all-consuming quest for free love. I felt more for Colette, desperately seeking validation from a mother too busy finding herself.

This was my first experience of Tessa Hadley’s work and I understand that her focus is upon marriage and family relationships and that she writes realistically. Still, I expect that the devastation Phyllis leaves in her wake likely is realistic and no less tragic for it.

There is no doubt that Tessa Hadley is a gifted writer and I felt that the 1960s setting was well realised. Yet social realism is not a literary genre that I am particularly drawn to. Those readers interested in novels with such themes, I am sure will have a higher appreciation of ‘Free Love’ than my rather lukewarm response.

Phylis is a 40 something, "happily" married, middle class suburban housewife whose life with her husband and two children in the 1960's when a friends son is invited to dinner. Nicky is the complete opposite of them all and a kiss in the darkness of a neighbours garden changes everyone lives forever.
A bit like Sleeping Beauty, Phylis wakes up to the possibilities of a different life. The story doesn't just focus on Phylis, Tessa Hadley keeps you invested in all of the characters as you follow the changes in their lives as well.

A great read.

I was given a copy of Free Love by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

I was honoured when I was approached to read an ARC of this novel, so I have to say thank you so much in advance to Random House UK/ Jonathan Cape and NetGalley for the privilege!

The characters and setting in this novel are somehow all so relatable and so genuine that I believed in every single one of them, and therefore found their choices and their struggles quite difficult to read. Hadley is a master of creating empathy in the reader. The background of the sixties feels authentic and utterly transportive. Hadley’s narrative leaps off the page and into your imagination, so that you feel you absolutely must have been sitting there at that first monumental, excruciating dinner party.

Fantastic.

Set in London in the 1960s, this novel is full of the intimacy and care that I love so much about Tessa Hadley. The Fischer Family are 'conventional' and suburban. A late night kiss sets off a spiral of events that we follow throughout the novel.

I really loved the level of detail. It's only not getting a fifth star as I wanted more - parts were omitted that could have been told (SPOILER: e.g. I wanted to hear more about the final stages of Phyllis' pregnancy and Michael's birth).

That said, this is Tessa Hadley doing what we love her best for and she does it so well! 4/5.

It’s the heady 1960’s and Phyllis Fischer is a middle class housewife in the ‘burbs. Roger, her husband has a successful career in the Foreign Office, their 15 year old daughter, Colette, is limbering up to O Levels and 9 years old Hugh will be sent off soon to his father’s old boarding school.
The son of a family friend, Nicky Knight, is coming to dinner and none of them, including him, are especially keen. But it will be a momentous night for them all as, when searching for a lost sandal in a neighbour’s garden afterwards, Nicky and Phyllis kiss. She is suddenly awakened and leaves her family and her old life behind to join Nicky in his squat in London. He lives in a very down at heel, 1930’s apartment block, the Everglade, and it is stuffed to the gills with creative, bohemian people. She is just 40 and is suddenly surrounded by young people all involved with Swinging London.
She moves in with Nicky , before finding her own place, while her family deal with what’s happened in their own way. Increasingly, Colette takes centre stage as she visits her mother at the Everglade and becomes seduced by the counterculture. She is disenchanted by the conveyor belt that she appears to be on and soon takes up with a scruffy sculptor, Paul, who also lives in the block and sets off with him to America and into a different future.
A surprising revelation comes halfway through the book and Nicky and Phyllis drift apart. Roger offers her a second chance but there’s no way back.
I have to say that this did feel like a familiar story of a respectable, middle class woman or man ‘finding themselves’ in ‘60’s London. I imagine this happened to many people who experienced a sudden awakening and dissatisfaction with their lives. I felt that the kiss seemed so sudden and out of the blue with no build up to it. And then suddenly Phyllis was off to London to move in with Nicky as if her old life had never existed. I thought that the aftermath of her decision and her family’s reaction was very well written. Roger re-reads her note after hearing that Phyliss has been seen in a restaurant with a man and bitterly senses ‘ the sex coming off the page.’
It was a well written book full of surprising images such as ‘the dazzle of coloured lights from the stained glass in the porch door’, the coiled spring of the staircase’, in the Everglade, and ‘lead pencil stroked’ of plane trees. The title felt ironic in that, despite all the trendy talk of equality, 2 of the characters are literally left holding the baby. However, it wasn’t really for me. Phyllis never came alive for me as a person although we learned some of her history.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

Wonderful. A tender, melancholy account of sixties dreams and reality which doesn't fall into cliches. Pace slightly lessens towards the end but still very good.

I enjoyed this quick read, although I did not like any of the characters apart from Jean, and thought the ending was a bit abrupt.

The descriptions of London life in the 60s were good and mostly spot on; I was there, living in "the Hill" and I do remember it! I especially like the author's description of the (then) "modern man" as a supporter of women's lib in theory, but not in so far as it affected him personally, and a black character's expectation that racism would persist far beyond the 60s. In many ways, it seems that one of the author's objectives for "Free Love" is to suggest (correctly) that society hasn't really moved on at all between the revolutionary changes in the 1960s and 2022.

With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me a copy of the novel in exchange for this honest review.

‘Free Love’ is the tongue-in-cheek title of Tessa Hadley’s latest novel set in 1967 (with a nod to Philip Larkin’s ‘Annus Mirabilis’ written in the same year) which focuses on the effect of entrenched gender roles. Whilst some may accept that this is just the way it is, others have a moment of clarity and strive for something different. Phyllis is one of the latter. Mother of two children, Colette and Hugh, a suburban housewife whose husband, Roger, works at the Foreign Office, she falls passionately in love with a young man twenty years younger and follows him to London to live in his rundown room in Notting Hill. Obviously, this spur of the moment decision has enormous ramifications for her family, not least her children.
At sixteen Colette takes on the role of housekeeper to her abandoned father for a while but she soon decides that there’s more to life than pleasing him. Tessa Hadley captures superbly that liminal state between girl and woman; Colette tries on many a literal and metaphorical outfit as she seeks to find out who she is and what she really values. Whilst she’s appalled by her mother’s behaviour, she can’t help but admire her dramatic volte face as well.
This is a beautifully written novel which portrays the collapse of traditional values and ‘acceptable’ behaviour and both the hurt and the joy that is entailed in stepping away from expectations. Tessa Hadley avoids any moralising, rather encouraging sympathy for all her characters. Whilst no one ends up a ‘winner’, perhaps the contrast she makes between Phyllis’ and Roger’s lives latterly suggests that the importance of being true to oneself can’t be under-estimated. A very thought-provoking, subtle and engaging story.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This book is a sharply observed account of how the Sixties must have shaken up life in Britain, even for people on the fringes, with a plot twist that, if you see it coming, I'm very impressed! Hadley's writing is insistent and thoroughly grounds you in both the middle-class world of the Fischers and the more revolutionary way of life represented by Nicky (and later Colette). She also cleverly plays with the relationship between mother and daughter and husband and wife, never shying away from the less traditional interpretation. I couldn't stop reading.

I was sent a copy of Free Love by Tessa Hadley to read and review by NetGalley. I really enjoyed this novel, I found that I could identify with it on several levels having grown up during the 60s and 70s. Thankfully there wasn’t any gratuitous sex featuring in it, despite the title. Both the characters and locations within the book were well rounded and believable. The author used the increasingly popular style of not having specific speech marks in the dialogue between characters, which I found very appropriate for this book. I liked the style of writing, though it did change slightly for a time towards the latter part of the story which is the only reason for not giving the novel the full 5 stars. A great read.

It was the first book I read by Tessa Hadley and won't surely be the last as I liked her style of writing.
It's the story of an awakening, of starting again but it's also a story that talks about a woman who choses her lover over her children.
I think this is the most revolutionary part as it's still considered scandalous.
Phillys is not a likeable character: she's entitled and she's ready to forget other people emotion to live her own revolution. Roger seems to be a more likeable character but you discover that nothing is what it seems.
I liked the younger characters but they player a minor part and I would curious to learn about their future.
It's a compelling, well written and interesting book.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

According to the cliche, if you can remember anything about the 60s you weren't there. And I wasn't, so I may be completely wrong when I say this whole story felt very true to the 60s, but to me it did. If you told me it was written back then I'd believe you because it has the same feel as the books and films I've encountered that actually are from that era. Small linguistic touches that make it feel like a book not just about the 60s, but from the 60s too. It does it without feeling dated too. There is just enough modern knowingness to prevent that. When it talks about drugs, race, and sex it does so naturally, and not like an attempt to shock the establishment that did exist in many writings actually from the era, and indeed later. That blend makes the story work. It gives us superb characters in Phyllis and Roger - characters with a measured depth and who can help blur the boundaries of the world being portrayed.

Phyllis and Roger show interesting sides to the world. Both are constrained by societal norms, both deal with them differently. And despite both representing somewhat cliched takes on 60s society they also both avoid being parodies of what they represent. They are typical without being stereotypes, and they are rather endearing as a result. Their stories develop cleverly, showing the way the world had and was changing. Allowing new opportunities while old standards lingered. The world and society evolving around them, often confusingly. Most of all though, Hadley tells the story of people who exist between the binary positions we so often view in the world. How very few of us fit perfectly into the boxes the world places us in.

It's a careful study of people, of love, of being trapped, of finding your way. It's a story that delivers hope and resignation. It's one of those books that you can tell will speak to different readers in countless different ways. And that makes it worthwhile. That is why it stands out. It's a book to absorb more than read. A book to ponder over and contemplate. That makes it a very enjoyable book.

This is exquisitely gentle storytelling of big dramas in a small family setting. It’s the 1960s and a woman has just left her husband and children for the son of a family friend and is experiencing the exciting world of multicultural London. Her kids resent her and her husband misses her. So far, so mild, but this novel somehow has shocking twists even though it’s the furthest thing from a thriller possible. I’ve read one other Hadley novel before and although I can’t totally remember what happened in it I know that it had very similar vibes of a tight knit set of dramas. Interesting, if you like that sort of thing.

I found Free Love reminiscent of Elizabeth Jenkins’s The Tortoise and the Hare; Tess Hadley immediately places us in space and time with its perfect depiction of the choicer end of suburbia in 1967. As Phyllis completes her toilet before descending the stairs to a party she’d rather not be holding, I somehow recognised it and felt nostalgia for something I have never known. Hadley sets a brisk pace; after only a matter of a few pages I felt as though I knew the family.
After having been focused solely on Phyllis’s inner life in the first part of the story, the perspective is widened out to the other characters. Roger is perhaps a little staid, a little set in his ways but he seems to have his heart in the right place; still waters run deep. Colette is great – yes, young and a little naïve, but scathing and with enough self-awareness to see her right.
The depiction of an extramarital affair struck me as accurate, the feeling of passion juxtaposed with the obvious lack of compatibility in situation and outlook, and the dangerous game of mentionitis. It’s funny in places, too: ‘If he won’t have me then I’ll die, she thought. Although she also knew that she wouldn’t really die, she’d go home and put macaroni cheese in the oven.’
This is the kind of book that would have passed me by 20 years ago. Now I love the examination of the tensions and undercurrents in family life. I found myself bookmarking all sorts and exclaiming at the beautiful writing. There’s some great imagery, sometimes really dark, and delicious social observation: I think we’ve all had to endure ‘one of those men’ who ‘only want to talk about themselves’. What I didn’t expect was a plot twist, a revelation delicious in how it complicates everything. Why oh why have I not read any of Tessa Hadley’s work before? That’s one New Year’s resolution, then: read her entire back catalogue.

Cataclysmic May and December entanglements, circa 1967

Roger, a senior civil servant with an eventually surprising past, and his pretty, conventional wife Phyllis, live a bourgeois, well-heeled life in the home counties, with their awkward, highly intelligent rather lumpish 16 year old daughter, Colette, and young son, Hugh, just about ready to be sent away to the same public school his father went to.

Roger and Phyllis have been asked, by Jean, wife of an older colleague of Roger’s, to invite their louche son Nicholas, whom they last saw as a graceless mid teens, some five years ago, to dinner. Jean hopes that Nicholas, cynical and drifting, vaguely artistic, generally nihilistic rather than actively radical, might be helped, somehow, to find a professional direction within Roger’s sphere of influence

So begins Tessa Hadley’s novel, and, as those familiar with her writing might expect, beneath an ordered surface of family life, much more complicated undercurrents and cataclysms await

I love Hadley’s writing, and her uncovering of psychology, careful unravellings of family life, and sharp observations of the times.

That dinner party gathering will prove to be some kind of unstoppable earthquake event, an avalanche or brewing volcanic eruption.

Her writing is also gorgeous, without necessarily advertising itself showily as such :

“The night was ripe with the earth’s exhalations: mushroom-pungent leafd moul, hint of reeking fox, foliage sour from fermenting all day in the sun. The broad brown significant river, close at hand, flowed too fast and was too full to lap or babble; coiling mud-rich against its banks, it seemed, if you knew it was there, to damp off sound like a felt blanket; cries of late-settling birds rent it sharply”

She is precise and specific creating tangible reality, whether of place or of people

Highly recommended

Excellent read and completely absorbing.. The portrayal of the sixties era really reminded me of my youth. Anything happened and anything was possible. Free spirits emerging from strict upbringings. Explorations with drugs and sex were all exploding during this time. Not only the young finding who they are but middle age rebelling and looking for what they had missed.

Free Love by Tessa Hadley

In 1960s suburbia the world of Phyllis, a 40 year old housewife, and her family is changed forever when the son of a family friend visits.

My first book of 2022 and what a fabulous start! Loved the author's writing, the characters, setting and the story. It was refreshing to see the 60s from a 40 year old's point of view rather than the usual young person and the period detail was fabulous, so evocative. The author never shied away from the difficulties brought about by Phyllis's situation or the 60s itself and so the book felt very authentic. A very engrossing and enjoyable read - very highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

This is a book happening in height of sexual revolution, about Phyllis married to a civil servant and seems happy with life, until a young man comes to their house and things change. Tessa Hadley explores the characters and their feeling and desire. it is a very well written book.