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The Master Bedroom: A Novel Paperback – April 29, 2008

by Tessa Hadley (Author)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 543 ratings
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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, The Master Bedroom, discovers the anxieties of adulthood, and the hazards of refusing to grow up.

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  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Picador
  4. Publication date
    April 29, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.79 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0312427972
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0312427979
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A chess game of slow-burn erotic maneuvers . . . Hadley is a lovely, subtly teasing writer.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Truly beautiful prose. Hadley's writing is outright gorgeous, without a misstep or false note. . . . Both artful and realistic and most of all enjoyable.” ―Newsday

“Elegantly observed . . . Hadley's smart, often prickly characters remind us that love is never simple and happiness rarely wins without sorrow.” ―People (four stars)

“Melancholy and starkly emotive . . . evokes the raw drama that lies at the emotional nexus between friends and lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children.” ―Booklist

“Hadley handily casts her tough but compassionate gaze on the domestic chaos that can erupt from coping with declining parents, the rekindling of old flames, and the sorting-out of a deteriorating marriage.” ―The Seattle Times

“A perfectly wrought novel . . . [Hadley has] a gift for psychological acuity and an ability to encapsulate the human condition.” ―The Guardian (UK)

About the Author

Tessa Hadley teaches literature and creative writing at Bath Spa University College. Her first novel, Accidents in the Home, which was excerpted in The New Yorker, was longlisted for The Guardian's First Book Award. She lives in Cardiff, Wales.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; First Edition (April 29, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312427972
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312427979
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.79 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 543 ratings

About the author

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Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley

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Tessa Hadley is the author of four highly praised novels: Accidents in the Home, which was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award; Everything Will Be All Right; The Master Bedroom; and The London Train, which was a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of two short-story collections, Sunstroke and Married Love, both of which were New York Times Notable Books as well. Her stories appear regularly in the New Yorker. She lives in London.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
543 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Eric Selby
4.0 out of 5 stars A Unique, Very British Narrative Voice
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2009
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If you are looking for a novel with a cast of characters you would absolutely never want to know in real life, then this is the book for you. And it was for me. Kate has given up her teaching job -- she really didn't like it anyway -- to return to the house where she was born and where her aging mother and now in early stages of demencia is living. It is a huge house filled with multiple generations worth of everything. On her way, a black swan falls from the sky, landing on Suzie's car, causing an accident. This fact does not emerge again until later in the novel. But Suzie is the second wife of David. And David is the younger brother of Kate's best friend Carol. And David has a son, Jamie, from his first marriage to a woman who committed suicide. Oh, yes, and Suzie has her own set of dysfunctions. This is dysfunctionalism piled on top. But what is fascinating is the narrative style that I grew to like. However, I agree with the person who wrote that this is not a novel one reads quickly. But for me it was fun because I rather admire the British and rather like reading about how dysfunctional they too can be. I wavered between four and five stars. But since it was not as satisfying as some of Tessa Hadley's short stories, I said, "Oh, well, give the old girl a four."
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D. P. Birkett
5.0 out of 5 stars A long way from Tiger Bay
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2010
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Other reviewers have summarized the plot and lavished well-deserved praise on this masterpiece so I feel justified in going off on some tangents. It's probably unfair and irrelevant to compare this to Trezza Azzopardi's "The Hiding Place" simply on the grounds of geography but they are both so strongly located in Cardiff and are such great novels that the parallels kept coming to mind. Tiger Bay was a mainly non-white area, with Somali and Maltese communities left from the days of Cardiff as a busy port. Azzopardi describes a horribly abusive family surviving there. Hadley's Cardiff seems pallid and refined in comparison. All her adult characters are college graduates and there is no violence except for a suicide preceding the main action, and a non-fatal car accident at the beginning. (Being even more irrelevant, was a reference to Yeats' "Leda and the Swan" intended?)
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J. Grattan
3.0 out of 5 stars Gloomy Wales pervades (3.25*s)
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2011
This gloomy novel set in rainy, cold Wales is a scarcely satisfactory attempt to shed light on the major change that Russian literature professor Kate Flynn is making in her life by abandoning a successful London university career and returning to her large, crumbling childhood estate in Cardiff, Wales to, in theory, care for her 80-something mother Billie, suffering from dementia.

Despite a certain awkwardness in style - for example, using dashes in lieu of quotations - requiring constant rereading, the author turns a keen eye towards the surroundings, the culture, and people, in general. But, her characters are puzzling, not altogether understandable.

The discontents of the unmarried diminutive, attractive Kate are never made clear, but she has always had a healthy interest in the opposite sex. She begins a uncertain relationship with David Roberts, a childhood friend and public health physician, who is having marital woes - his wife Suzie is spending a great deal of time with a counter-culture group. Most improbable is her involvement with Jamie, David's 17-year-old son, after a chance meeting in a café, especially given his reclusiveness and lethargy. It is a relationship that is secretive, tentative, and sexual.

Despite the proximity of these individuals there are few interactions and consequently there are no conflict-fueled developments and only minimal clarifications ensue. It is strange that the teenage Jamie takes far more initiative than the other two, who are strangely hesitant, indecisive, at every turn. The gloom of the Wales setting: the rain, the darkness, the mud, furnaces not working, etc, seems to have a dulling impact on the entire book. The initial possibilities for this book are not well realized. The characters finally wander off the stage, leaving minimal imprints.
3 people found this helpful
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David R. Anderson
4.0 out of 5 stars "The Graduate" Turned Inside Out
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2011
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"The Master Bedroom" comes without a preface to explain how Tessa Hadley hit on the idea to write a novel about a 17-year old boy who seduces a family friend, 43-year Kate Flynn, who, while the affair is going on, had designs on his father. It's the plot of "The Graduate" turned inside out. Whether or not these is any conscious parallelism between the books, "The Master Bedroom" is an elegantly told story about a woman in search of her self and the men, including the teenager, Jamie Roberts, David, his Dad, and Max her erstwhile American lover from whom she seeks direction. If they are not as baffled as she is, they are not a great deal of help either. Ultimately, she is turned back on her own resources and the reader is left to wonder whether, as she asked at the beginning of the book "her life would ever fit into the lucid shapes she planned for it."

End note. Tessa Hadley teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University in Bath, England, not far from Cardiff, Wales, the setting for this novel and the author's residence. She has published three other novels, most recently "The London Train" as well as "Sunstroke and Other Stories" which I have also reviewed and praised. If you read and enjoy "The Master Bedroom" (and its hard not to), you might also consider tracking down a copy of "In Praise of Older Women" by Stephen Vizinczey. So much depends on opportunity.
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Tom O'Leary
5.0 out of 5 stars Sexy, Funny, Involving & True---A perfect novel!
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2011
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Tessa Hadley is one of the best fiction writers of our time. I probably shouldn't limit her to fiction because I'll bet the ranch she could, if she wished, write sublime poetry and non-fiction. The Master Bedroom is a lovely book. The writing is exquisite. I first disovered Hadley via one of her perfect short stories in a recent New Yorker magazine. Now I can't get enough of her work. I've ordered five books already. Bravo to a gorgeous novel, written by one of the best writers of modern time.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Lise Colas
4.0 out of 5 stars Plot didn't deliver much, but nice prose
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 27, 2016
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I've given it four stars for the wonderful prose style. Any writer who employs words like 'farouche' (twice) and 'splashily' always gets my vote :) The intro/set-up was very promising indeed and had me hooked. Unfortunately, the further the plot (such as it was) progressed, the weaker it got--there was a fairly dramatic outcome for Kate the main character --the fall out from which we never got to see. I also felt the relationship she had with her cat seemed more real than the weirdly complicated one she had with her mother. The sub-plot with David (the brother of an old friend) and his marriage troubles also seemed to fade into 'nothing to see here, really'. So that was a big let down. There was a whole rack of Posy Simmonds-type characters employed as a kind of chorus/back up, including a cello player pal of Kate's who was described in a very engaging, witty way but given no name for some reason. Some passages seemed to be filled out with a distracting picturesque symbolism divorced from actuality--especially the scene where Kate falls into bed with a newly acquired lover and she happens to brush her hand against the antique bed head in the dark--identifying the contours of the elaborately carved cornucopia---as you do while having impromptu sex with someone entirely unexpected :P. Wondered in the end if it was a short story eked out to novella length. Still, I found it a decent read and it made me curious about some of Tessa Hadley's other offerings.
6 people found this helpful
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J Leeming
5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2017
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Tessa Hadley always tells a good story but it is enhanced by a beautiful writing style.
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L S
3.0 out of 5 stars Nice prose, plot lacking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2022
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I like books where very little happens but I didn't care for this. I found the characters underdeveloped. I also found the speedy way in which Kate fell for David to be rather poorly executed. Billie's dementia showed a lack of understanding and research on the subject. I could go on.
2 people found this helpful
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Celia McInnes
4.0 out of 5 stars Strange
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2021
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An unusual story in a common background. I found it gripping.
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Dr T
2.0 out of 5 stars I was disappointed in this
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2016
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Well written but rather cliched and predictable. I was disappointed in this.
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