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  • Late in the Day

  • By: Tessa Hadley
  • Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
  • Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (119 ratings)
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Late in the Day

By: Tessa Hadley
Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
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Summary

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley, read by Abigail Thaw.

Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been close friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead.

In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach was the sanest and kindest of them all, the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.

Late in the Day explores the tangled webs at the centre of our most intimate relationships, to expose how beneath the seemingly dependable arrangements we make for our lives lie infinite alternate configurations. Ingeniously moving between past and present and through the intricacies of her characters’ thoughts and interactions, Tessa Hadley once again shows that she has ‘become one of this country’s great contemporary novelists. She is equipped with an armoury of techniques and skills that may yet secure her a position as the greatest of them’ (Anthony Quinn, Guardian).

©2019 Tessa Hadley (P)2019 Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about Late in the Day

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Time changes everything

I liked listening to this - it's impressive how Tessa Hadley kept my interest as she delved more and more deeply into this married quartet of best friends. Only a prolonged trip to Venice bored me - it felt like Hadley indulging herself in a recent visit to Venice.
It all starts with a phone call from Christine's best friend since school, Lydia, one evening. Lydia's husband Zachary is dead: Zachary the vibrant, energetic, bright one has had a heart attack and is unbelievably dead. Of course Lydia in her distress must move in with Christine and Alex.Can that work?
The rest of the novel weaves backwards and forwards in time, fleshing out the very close relationship between the four of them. Hadley does it all at such a leisurely pace with such delicacy, such insights into intimacy and marriage, the passing of time, the dependency of children and wives, bereavement, loss, letting go......that the quartet become totally real. When it all suddenly stops, it's quite a wrench.
Beautifully read - totally in tune with the content. A lovely voice from Abigail Thaw.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant - performance and writing

Now want to buy the print copy to read again. Must say Abigail’s narration was nothing short of iconic - in the Juliette Stevenson league. Certainly not for the beach readers but a breath of Fresh air for the more literary reader. Doubt if I’ll read a better book this year .

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

So disappointed

I really struggled to get through this and by the end, I really couldn't have cared less about the vacuous and venal quartet of characters. Dreary and boring.

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1 person found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing and dreary

I came to this with high hopes as Tessa Hadley is sometimes spoken of as the best UK writer today. This completely escaped me. Competently written but not more And I found the story of middle class NorthLondoners dreary and unengaging. Not helped by the flat delivery of the reader.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good read

It my first tessa Hadley book, and I enjoyed the intrigue between friends through time.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Beautiful writing and interesting story

Excellent writing - requires concentration on walks - you can’t just drift off into your own thoughts . Through her writing you get an insight into the characters and their interwoven complexities and overall makes a very enjoyable listen

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Sexist pretentious drivel

Rarely decide not to finish a book but this is an exception . It dismissed real jobs ( teaching, nursing)which displays a lack of understanding or research which gave the story little depth. The sexist is astounding- all the way through.
Appalling .

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Tedious

Enjoy hearing people analyse their own dreams, or describe at length their reaction to art? Feel kinship for entitled middle class women whose main achievement is to be someone's wife, and panic at the thought of paying their own way? Then this is the book for you. A waste of fine writing

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautifully written

A character study of the complexities of relationships and how people often get what they want in subtle hardly discernible ways.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Late in the Day

The most recent book by Tessa Hadley, a late-developing novelist, has strong characters with well scripted tensions between them. This is the story of two couples and their children - how they cope after the sudden death in the opening scene of the most genial member of the four. The author weaves present day problems with flashbacks to how they met when young. The husbands and wives are best friends. You become eager to discover how the relationships are strained in the past and how they unravel after the death.

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