Cardiff BookTalk: Free Love (in-person and online)
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Cardiff BookTalk is delighted to invite you to Free Love: an audience with Tessa Hadley, our first in-person event since 2020. We are meeting in Cardiff University Glamorgan Building, Committee Rooms 1 & 2, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3WT on December 6th, 2022, 6pm (doors open at 5.30pm). This event is supported by Literature Wales’ Inspiring Communities Fund.
Set in 1967, Free Love tells the story of Phyllis Fischer, who abandons her conventional life as a housewife and mother of two in stuffy suburbia. Escaping to Ladbroke Grove, the centre of London’s counterculture, she pursues an unlikely affair with Nicky, half her age and the son of a close friend of her husband.
Chronicling the impact of her choices upon the rest of the Fischer family, Free Love is a witty and stylish exploration of what happens when romantic dreams of personal freedom collide with harsh reality, when families have secrets and relationships are messy, when the twists and turns in people’s lives include the unexpected and the unplanned.
Free Love is a brilliant novel about love and escape in a turbulent decade. – Frances Wilson
A beguiling novel, deceptively easy to read; beneath the surface swim disturbing and age-old questions about freedom and fate. – Hilary Mantel
Beautifully structured and brilliantly paced. It displays Tessa Hadley's extraordinary skill at making both surface life and deep interiors come fully alive. – Colm Tóibín
A fascinating portrait of a world of politics, manners, morals and the decline of empire in a period of rapid societal change… Hadley writes compellingly fascinating characters viewed from every angle, perfectly encapsulating an era of change. – Kirsty McLuckie, The Scotsman
Tessa Hadley lives in Cardiff and is the prize-winning author of eight novels and three collections of short stories. Her novels, which include The London Train, Clever Girl, and Late in the Day, have reached the longlists of the Orange Prize and the Wales Book of the Year, and in 2016 she won the Hawthornden Prize and one of the Windham-Campbell Prizes for her contribution to literature. She has won great acclaim for her short stories which have appeared in publications including Granta and The New Yorker. Free Love, her eighth novel, was published in January 2022 and is currently in development for a TV drama series.
The author will be in conversation with Dr Susan Morgan (University Teacher in Creative and Critical Writing, Cardiff University), followed by an opportunity for audience questions and discussion. To make the most of the session, you may like to read Free Love. Further recommended texts include The London Train, Clever Girl, and Bad Dreams.
The event is free and open to all. For those who cannot attend in-person, this event will be available online, either as a live-stream and/or recording (details to be confirmed).
Glamorgan Building
King Edward VII Avenue
Cardiff
CF10 3WA