Accidents in the Home A Novel

Clare Menges is the twenty-nine-year-old suburban mother of three, but her comfortable world is disrupted when her best friend's lover appears in her life. Anyway Clare's perfect life was never what it seemed; the world of her family is a complicated and fraught web of marriages and divorces, half-siblings and stepchildren, broken homes and homes reassembled. As Clare's relationships begin to unravel, she notices her life repeating the patterns of those around her. Tessa Hadley constructs a beautifully fashioned and intimate portrait of family life in our times.

Tessa Hadley lives in Cardiff, Wales, and teaches literature at Bath Spa University College. Accidents in the Home is her first novel.

“[A] surprising and rewarding novel...a panorama of a contemporary kind of family life.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Accidents in the Home is a stylish, skillful first novel. Hadley is an acute observer of the insinuations of the strange and sinister into even the most outwardly placid life.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A domestic soap opera of the very best kind...[and] what’s best about Hadley’s novel is her unflinching clarity about the complexities and ambivalences of family life.” —The Baltimore Sun

“[A] captivating first novel, but the thrill of this tale lies in her distinctive characters—their fleeting elation and cleverly plotted contradictions, and the repercussions of their actions.” —The Herald Journal (Logan, Utah)