A powerful literary debut chronicling a year in the life of one thoroughly modern family Clare Verey, a twenty-nine-year-old mother of three, bakes her own bread and grinds her own spices. She has a comfortable home in the suburbs and a devoted husband. Why is it, then, that when her best friend's lover appears in her life he has the power to invert her world? Why is the desire for more never satisfied? So begins Accidents in the Home , a novel that exposes the emotional underbelly of a modern-day family. Clare's narrative is deftly intertwined with the stories of her extended family: her mother, Marian, the clever daughter of a Dostoevsky scholar whose husband leaves her for a beautiful young art student; Clare's half brother, Toby, a dreamy boy who prefers to view life through the lens of a camera; her troubled younger half sister, Tamsin, who develops an apparatus of taboos and rituals to restore order to her chaotic past. In the world Tessa Hadley has created, family is no longer a steady foundation but a complex web of marriages, divorces, half siblings, and stepchildren that expands with every new connection and betrayal. Accidents in the Home offers a startling, intimate portrait of family life in our time. This densely populated debut by British author Hadley is yet another novel of dysfunctional husbands and wives who seek greener pastures with best friends' wives and husbands. Clare leads a comfortable, Martha Stewart existence with her university sweetheart husband and a passel of well-adjusted children until she meets David, the lover of her best friend, Helly. Nothing really happens when she follows David back to London, using her need to do library research as a ruse, except that she leaves husband Bram to entertain Helly. Meanwhile, Clare's father gets a night out alone and decides to dump his hippy wife, Naomi, for the lanky young Linda. Readers may need scorecards at this point. Step-siblings abound, and sorting out relationships gets a bit difficult by book's end. Hadley is a skilled and thoughtful writer, and her characters have much to say about the complexity and durability of marriage, but it's often lost under the weight of guilt and anxiety. Recommended for large quality fiction collections. [The opening chapter was recently excerpted in The New Yorker. Ed.] Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, C. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Claire and Helly have been stealing each other's boyfriends ever since they became "best" friends in high school. Now, however, the stakes are much higher. Claire, ensconced in the suburbs with her biologist husband, Bram, and their three children, is jealous of her glamorous single friend's lifestyle. Aspiring actress Helly works as a model and has beautiful clothes and a handsome, witty new boyfriend. As Claire embarks on the certain path to divorce, the equally complicated entanglements of her extended family are also brought to light. Her father, Graham, on his third marriage, discovers that his wife is cheating on him. Her dreamy half-brother, Toby, must contend with his mother's fractious, first-time lesbian relationship. Claire's younger sister, Tamsin, experienced a deeply traumatic romance as a teenager but refuses to talk about it. This is Hadley's first novel, and it is a mixed bag. Sometimes annoying, sometimes involving, it's a maddening blend of tedious domestic detail and startling insight. It is most notable for its technical finesse and its dark view of modern relationships. Joanne Wilkinson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved ". . . Hadley charts both the complex workings of the outside world and the tangled inner landscapes of the mind and heart . . ." --Elizabeth Graver, author of The Honey Thief Tessa Hadley teaches literature and creative writing at Bath Spa University College in Cardiff, Wales, and recently completed a book on the novels of Henry James. Accidents in the Home is her first novel. Used Book in Good Condition