"Bad Dreams and Other Stories," by Tessa Hadley

I am really on a roll! After reading the short story collections discussed in my last two posts, both so terrific and both displaying such deep knowledge of human nature, I have been fortunate enough to hit a triple (yes, StephanieVandrickReads can use sports metaphors!). Another of my favorite writers, Tessa Hadley, has an excellent new book of short stories out: “Bad Dreams and Other Stories” (HarperCollins, 2017). Author of several wonderful novels and short story collections, including her compelling recent novel “The Past” (see my post of 2/27/16), Hadley always leaves me with (as I put it in another earlier post on Hadley) that “Wow!” feeling readers experience on encountering writing that is original, exciting, real, and both new and deeply familiar. Hadley is English, and these stories take place in England. They focus on the seemingly small moments of everyday life, small moments that reveal larger truths. Themes include secrets, memories, fears, connections, families, childhood, marriage, sex, social class, and more. One common topic is the way children observe adults and adult life, and how children and adults are bound to misunderstand each other so often and in so many ways. Another is what it is like to leave home and live far away, and how disconnected to one’s family one sometimes becomes. As these last three sentences indicate, the stories are infused with all the ways that even loving families and friends can be mysteries and strangers to each other. This is of course sad, but in Hadley’s hands, the stories and emotions are always more complex than that. And not in an abstract way; the characters are always intriguing. These three short story collections that I have read and posted on most recently remind me of how much I, although my first love is novels, am drawn to short stories as well, when the practitioners of that art are as brilliant as authors Elizabeth Strout, Richard Russo, and Tessa Hadley.