The Party

So I’m really not a fan of short stories, I don’t like how I just get to know the characters and the setting and find out a little of what’s going on and then it’s done. Where’s the rest of my book?! Novellas though I thought I could handle. And Tessa Hadley’s definitely become a favourite author so I really wanted to love this and enjoy its brevity. But.

It was the same old story - I just wanted there to be more. Tell me more about post war Bristol, tell me more about the sisters: Evelyn’s studying French and Moira’s studying fashion, how did they get there? Is their parents’ relationship just going to fizzle on like this forever? What happens to the nice guy Evelyn ignores, do the bad guys have any redeeming features? I often want to know more about the background characters in a book, in a novella it feels like even the main characters are background characters. You can sketch in all sorts of things behind them to fill out the picture and maybe that’s the beauty of it. You rather know what happened before this and you can take a good stab at what happens next.

I just put the book down feeling a little short-changed. It’s definitely not a bad book, it hinges on a turning point in the lives of two sisters, and if you want a quick read that’s actually full of detail then I could almost recommend it. It’s just that I really wanted it to be a prelude and not the whole thing.