Having previously read some of Tessa Hadley's works I was excited to read her latest novel. I am usually a fan of Hadley's writing style but somehow 'Free Love' missed the mark. It felt flat in places and disappointingly predictable.

Towards the end of the swinging sixties, London housewife Phyllis Fischer doesn’t realise she’s unhappy with her lot until the young son of a family friend comes around for dinner one night. Phyllis loves entertaining and but Nicky is something of an awkward guest, arriving late and seeming to have little to say other than becoming embroiled in a rather political discussion with her steady but dull husband, Robert. But then, as they are searching for a lost item in an adjoining garden, Nicky unexpectedly kisses her. Suddenly her outlook on life changes and soon she’s so enraptured by this rude, self-possessed young man that she’s left home and moved into his filthy flat, leaving Robert and her two children, Hugh and Collette, behind without so much as a word.

The writing here is excellent, brilliantly capturing what I believe to be both the mood and the feel of the 1960s. For the first half of the book I was completely transported to this time and this place as the various characters attempted to adjust to this sudden upheaval in their lives. But why would an attractive, middle-class housewife be so taken by this intelligent but scruffy and somewhat inattentive young man? In part it’s clearly the sex, but beyond that somehow the whole change of scene just seems to light something up within her.

In the second half of the book sixteen year old Collette takes the spotlight. Unattractive and unpopular with her classmates she decides the moment is right for her to commence her own journey – to somebody more interesting, increasingly brave and sometimes rash in her choices. But this switch in focus also heralds a change in the mood of the whole piece, as we are increasingly we are asked to consider a number of moral choices to be made by the leading characters. The change adds something to the story but it also takes something away, as Phyllis and Nicky rather fade into the background and for me a good deal of the story’s overall momentum is lost.

I really enjoyed the enviable way the author is able to put words on the page and yet here she’s introduced us to a cast of characters who are almost universally unlovable. And the story is, I think, a mixed bag of things that in the end that just doesn't quite tie together. I’m sure this one will divide opinion and I’ve already seen a number of reviews from readers who absolutely loved it, but I’m struggling to build up too much enthusiasm for a book that, in the end, I was glad to finish. It’s a three star rating for me.

The story starts in 1967 suburban London with the lives of a middle class family.
Phyllis ,the perfect housewife, Roger the breadwinner working in the Foreign Office and their two children Colette who is studying for her A levels and Hugh who is on the verge of going away to boarding school.
Everything seems utterly delightful on the surface until a visit from a young and handsome Nicholas the son of an old family friend.
The visit seems a disaster and it really didn't help with Nicholas turning up an hour late for dinner but as the evening goes on and Phyllis and Nicholas engage in a passionate kiss, everything changes for all of them.
Tessa has got into such detail about every character within the book and the decision they make. Such an insightful and wonderfully written novel into free love, free speech and the freedom of discovery.

What a wonderful romp!

Free Love is a comic novel set in 1967, the summer of Free Love and widely held to be the gateway from traditional values to modern thinking. Tessa Hadley provides a journey through this gateway, seen through the lives of the Fischer family.

Roger Fischer is a meat and two veg kind of middle class guy - war hero - senior civil servant in the Foreign Office - father of two school age children, Colette and Hugh, and happily married to Phyllis. His friends are well connected, and his social life has revolved around country estates. The Fischers' lives are mapped out on a path to moderate success within the establishment.

Enter stage left, Nicky Knight - the son of an old family friend who is invited to dinner one evening in the hope that he might hit it off with Colette, the dowdy 16 year old daughter. Nicky has just established himself in London with writerly ambitions, so the hope is that Roger could provide mentorship while Colette provides friendship. What a tangled web we weave - Nicky leaves with the wrong woman. Phyllis, seemingly on a whim, follows Nicky into 1967's bohemia - art, sex, drugs and West Indians.

The characters are all grotesque. They have major character flaws, they are not terribly virtuous but they all have a likability that is enhanced by a shifting point of view that shines a spotlight on each of them in turn. Phyllis is the star: naive, romantic and self-absorbed; with Nicky the immature and shallow co-star. The supporting cast of immediate family, aunts, hippies and schoolfriend are a comic delight. They all bring piety and leave with disgrace. The narration is done with a vein of humour that sets the reader in a position of moral superiority.

The scene setting feels right. The contrast between the brown affluence and the colourful poverty; the supposed shift in society - while the values actually turn out never to have been quite as far apart as all that. Roger is less conventional than he appears; while Nicky and the kids seem quite happy to jack in their free hedonism to chase careers. Novels often try to capture a momentous time through a limited car of characters - this one is that rare beast that succeeds. There feels like there is a world beyond the lives of these characters; it feels genuinely as though they are the link between two worlds and two ages.

This is not a remarkable or terribly surprising story. The strength is in the way it is told.

Free Love is my first Tessa Hadley novel and I very much enjoyed her writing style. She’s so good at setting the scene, I was immediately transported back to the 1960s, when this story takes place. It really does capture the melting pot of cultures at the time that were bubbling and clashing together. The upheaval and new beginnings of society are reflected by the characters in the book.

Free Love seamlessly shifts between character perspectives so we get to see how the members of the Fischer family feel as events unfold. Our lead character is 40-year old, Phyllis, married to Robert, they have two children: Colette and Hugh. Phyllis’ life is upended when the son of an old family friend, Nicky Knight, comes over for dinner.

I found myself very drawn to Phyllis, considered old by society the age of 40, she decides to walk away from the dull life-path she is on and embrace one that’s everything she isn’t right now. Kick started by having an affair with the much-younger, Nicky.

We then follow Phyllis as she abandons her middle-class life in the suburbs to live with Nicky in his small flat in Ladbroke Grove. We also get Colette’s perspective on what’s happening and I enjoyed how Colette’s and Phyllis’ storylines had a coming-of-age synergy: Colette’s being literal as she is 15, and Phyllis’ being an awakening. Colette’s storyline, however, sort of got brushed aside in the later section of the book, I would have likeD to hear more from her as she was so interesting.

The only other niggle I had was that Phyllis is only able to take this new path because she comes from money and privilege. She has an inheritance nest-egg so just plays at being poor and destitute, and the fact she abandons her children when they are still young enough to need their mother isn’t the most appealing characteristic to me…

Overall though, I devoured Free Love in a few days over the Christmas holidays – it was a great slice of escapism with more than a few clever plot moments and a wonderful trip back to the 1960s, I do recommend it. Really, when I think about it, maybe I’d like to be a bit more Phyllis and just abandon all responsibility to live how I want.

Tessa Hadley’s novel ‘Free Love’, follows Phylis, a woman in early middle age, who makes the choice to escape the confines of societies expectations of her. After a dinner party, she leaves her husband and children to pursue a relationship with Nicky, a much younger man with very different political beliefs to her husbands and contemporaries.

Throughout the novel, Hadley is without judgement. Phylis is not portrayed as a fallen woman, and she doesn’t get her comeuppance. At the same time her life isn’t easy or charmed, and she does face some unforeseen consequences.

I really enjoyed this book. Hadley’s characterisation is excellent and the novel had a great deal of pace and colour. The clash between old ‘respectability’ and tradition, with the political movements of the 1960’s is brilliantly portrayed. I would recommend this novel.

Tessa Hadley’s characters are always interesting but in this book she gets their context so precisely right that they become even more credible. The changes of the 1960s are beautifully evoked through the story of Phyllis who suddenly embarks on an affair with a much younger man and leaves her husband and two children to plunge into a very different world from the post-war middle class environment of her family. While this is a big emotional and cultural shift, she is still conveniently cushioned by inherited money of her own. The staggering selfishness of her behaviour inevitably makes the reader sympathise with her husband but he turns out to be a more complex character than he originally appears. Their children merit more concern: I finished the book wanting to know how they would navigate their lives beyond a damaged adolescence. The writing is superb: social position is neatly signified by tiny observations of the characters’ clothing and surroundings. Highly recommended.

I really loved ‘Free Love’ by Tessa Hadley. Despite disliking the characters I still enjoyed the descriptions of life and fashion in 1960’s London.

I really enjoyed this book, it was a great evocation of the late 60s. Phyllis annoyed me with her complete turnaround not giving any thought to her children, and her husband Roger was even more annoying with his total lack of empathy towards his family.
I enjoyed the foray into 1960s London and Phyllis's journey from suburban housewife to the 'Mrs Robinson' figure. But I would have run a mile if I had encountered Nicky's flat from hell!
The character development is sublime, so well written. I loved Colette, she triumphed in life with no thanks to her distanced and uninterested parents. I also loved how Hugh was written, very perceptively and realistic.
I thought this book was extremely clever, some of the characters such as Roger and Phyllis were totally self absorbed and their poor children were left to pick up the pieces.
Clever, touching and ultimately sad.

For me, this book wasn't so much about free love as it was betrayal, selfishness and mid-life crises - which may well have been the point. There's no doubt that it's beautifully written, but I struggled to engage with or really even like any of the characters. Colette, the teenage daughter, was the character that intrigued me most, and I found her character arc the most interesting part of the novel. The story centres on suburban housewife Phyllis having a sort of sexual reawakening when she spontaneously kisses a young man, Nicky, a family friend's son, when he comes to visit them for dinner. She ends up starting an affair with him and ultimately leaving her family for a new bohemian life in the city. But we don't really get a chance to get to know Phyllis before the kiss, so it was hard to really get a feel for how stifled she must have been feeling (although there are moments of claustrophobia that the author really does put across with mastery). Nicky, the supposed heart throb at the centre of if all, was the least appealing character for me - arrogant, immature, selfish, rude - and it was just hard to imagine someone completely losing their head over him. The writing is excellent, though, and the writer's sense of time and place is striking.

This felt like a reprint of a novel from the 1960s as this book perfectly captured the time and energy of the 1960s. It's a wonderful novel with a new take on a historic era that has been captured by artists, musicians, film makers and writers over and over again. It was like watching a movie with all details carefully carved, I could even smell the meals the family ate!

I liked the non-judgemental stance as the main characters grapple with far reaching consequences of their decisions. The characters were allowed to develop and bring their own story into the light. I felt a lot of compassion for every character as the truth was just always slightly out of sight.

I was completely absorbed in this unfolding drama and every character was skilfully drawn. I won't spoil the ending but I feel as though there is another story to tell, the story of the children and how the events of this story impact on their lives.

A very enjoyable read and I'll be recommending it.

This is a great read, and Tessa Hadley is definitely a name I’ll be looking out for again.

Phyllis is the main character, in her forties, married with two children and a pretty conservative lifestyle, One night she kisses someone else, a much younger man, and embarks on a passionate affair which turns all their lives upside down.

I loved the characters and the relationships between them all, and the flow of the story as events unwind. Great twist near the end that I didn’t see coming. Highly recommended.

Free Love depicts the effect of the new ways of thinking that flooded through society in the nineteen sixties upon a middle-class woman. Phyllis, the wife of a senior civil servant in the foreign office, begins an affair with a much younger man with devastating effects upon her family

Tessa Hadley’s examination of her characters is acute and unflinching. However, I do find her use of multiple third person narrative perspective a bit off-putting. It facilitates a wide canvas, certainly, but sometimes at the expense of empathy - by which I mean that the reader gets to know all the characters but doesn’t necessarily get to like any of them.

The overall effect is a painfully recognisable portrait of the times for anyone who lived through it, highlighting much that was destructive as well as liberating about the birth of the so-called counter-culture.

This book was a bit of a slow starter, with the 1960's suburban life of the Fischer family, but that all changed when Nicholas came for dinner. Phyllis and Colette really blossomed through the book, and the era and the London locations were vividly described. The tenants at Everglades were entertaining; I particularly liked Paul and Barbara. This story shows how life can be more enjoyable if you refuse to be bound by convention. Very moving with memorable.

I’ve enjoyed several of Tessa Hadley’s books, and this is her best yet. It’s 1967, and Phyllis Fischer is a bored hausfrau in the depths of Middle England, married to decent but dull-seeming Roger, a “respected and subtle Arabist” with the Foreign Office, and mother to schoolboy Hugh and the adolescent Colette, who has a pash on her English teacher.
Nicholas Knight, the son of a family friend, is coming to dinner, which no one seems particularly enthusiastic about. But Phyllis, “used to communicating with men through these light sexual touches, as much as through her chatter,” touches Nicky briefly on the shoulder with fingers cold from the ice bucket, and a touch paper is lit. They kiss in a neighbour’s garden, then in Phyllis and Roger’s bathroom, and before we know it Phyliss has hot-footed it to London to shack up with her paramour, abandoning husband, children and home.
From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, we know that the sexual revolution was a far better deal for men than for the women they bedded so freely. But Tessa Hadley, while deftly portraying a swinging London in all its swank and squalor – a time when Ladbroke Grove was distinctly infra dig – refuses to make victims of any of the women and girls in this novel. All of them have agency – Phyllis, entirely aware of the immaturity and shortcomings of her new lover, Colette, who visits her mother regularly and successfully negotiates her O levels, despite a period of truancy, Jean, Nicky’s mother, who is linked to Phyllis in a way that she couldn’t have imagined, even Colette’s schoolfriend Susan, who after a wild night on the town with Colette, vanishes in West London.
Free Love is a brilliant evocation of a time and place, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was drawn in from the very beginning. The characters were all extremely interesting. Phyllis was very brave to leave her ordinary comfortable life as wife and mother. A compelling story of love and finding self worth and happiness. A tremendously good read.

In well-heeled late-60s suburbia, Nicholas, the son of a family friend, comes to dinner with the Fischers. A kiss in the dark leads to more than anyone bargained for.

Free Love accurately conveys many period details, attitudes and the clash between youth and the British Establishment.

Hadley’s writing style is clean, precise and adept at zooming in on a character’s motivation. Despite the psychological insight, the characterisation lacks freshness – everything unfolds exactly as expected. As a result, the reading fell flat for me.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Vintage Limited for the ARC.

It’s 1967, and Phyllis Fischer, a respectable middle-aged woman with a civil servant husband, Roger, and two fairly ordinary teenage children, Hugh and Colette, is about to get caught up in the social and sexual revolution courtesy of a relationship with a young man, Nicholas Knight, who comes for dinner.

Nicholas is there because his mother is an old family friend, possibly a bit more than that, so everybody is going through the polite motions but a few plot twists of the kind that might happen in any middle-class household – plus a little wine – leaves Phyllis snogging Nicholas in the next neighbours garden and gagging for more!

In the coming weeks, the relationship takes off and the rest of the book goes a bit hippie with revolution in the air, drug taking, artists, poets, squats and so on as Phyllis pursues a different identity and moves to London to be with Nicholas.

I like the way that Phyllis falls into the arms of Nicholas with their different expectations and it’s all a nicely developed and tracked surprise, but the ‘Swinging Sixties’ background in London is a little bit less convincing and the way Phyllis handles her children doesn’t seem entirely authentic either. Anyway, we have to believe that she has overriding needs!

There are lots more complications before the story gets resolved and some are more likely than others. I felt a bit sorry for Hugh who seemed to be packed off to boarding school to keep him at arm’s length from the story but Roger turns out to be a good sort.

It’s a neat story and well crafted. Tessa Hadley’s descriptions are sharp but I struggled with the picture of London and hippie life. However, as a raunchy bit of escapism I can see it being popular with older readers who might think they just missed out at the time!

It’s 1967 and we are in the leafy suburbs in the home of the Fischers where Free Love, Protest and rejecting the’Old Guard’ has not yet showed up in any way shape or form. Roger Fischer works at the Foreign Office, wife Phyllis is a typical 50’s/60’s housewife and they have two children Colette, a teenager due to take her O Levels and 9 year old Hugh. All is well until the son of old friends of Roger’s comes to dinner and Nicholas Knight ruffles the conventionality and how! Phyllis makes a choice and it’s a daring one. Brave, mad or foolhardy? Your point of view would depend on how closely you are associated with the fallout.

There is much to like in this latest novel by Tessa Hadley. First of all, it is without doubt extremely well written and I do engage with the story although I don’t think there’s anything especially new here. For instance, although Nikki is intriguing in his youthful views you would expect him to reject the establishment that Roger represents. The characterisation is very good and I especially like Colette who brings her own brand of reality to the situation and Hugh initially is great fun although this definitely changes. Phyllis throws herself wholeheartedly into the sexual revolution and you can’t decide if you admire her or not! There is some good dialogue, at the start there is an entertaining dingdong between Nikki and Colette but be warned some dialogue will make you wince! It’s excellent in the historical context, the ideas and beliefs of the time, the “old‘ are expressed through Roger in particular and the ‘new’ via the newly branded Phyllis and Colette. There’s a good plot twister at the end that you definitely don’t see coming!

However, despite the many positives it does feel a bit predictable in the main plot thread in what occurs between flirty older woman and a much younger man. In places it’s a bit long winded and overdetailed which gets in the way of the progress you want to follow with the Fischer family and Nicky.

Overall though it’s a well written book and I really enjoy the 1960s setting.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Random House U.K., Vintage, Jonathan Cape for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

I found this to be totally absorbing and read it through without a break. The setting in time is perfectly captured and the characters have real depth. I loved reading the details of life in bohemian London contrasted with sedate country upper class society. Phyllis moves from one to the other and finds fulfillment in her new life. Her clever daughter struggles against her upbringing and education and tracks her mother down. But there is a twist in the tale and Phyllis' husband may have the last word. The strength of this novel is the depth of detail in the lives of the characters and the pace of the plot never lets up.