The Past cover art

The Past

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Past

By: Tessa Hadley
Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 Three sisters and a brother meet up in their grandparents' old house for three long, hot summer weeks. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past, but now they may have to sell it. And under the idyllic surface, there are tensions. Secrets are uncovered, and passions erupt as a way of life - bourgeois, literate, ritualised - winds down to its inevitable end.

©2015 Tessa Hadley (P)2015 W F Howes Ltd Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Bear, Otter, and the Kid cover art
The Long Gaze Back cover art
Ugly Love cover art
The Count of Monte Cristo [Classic Tales Edition] cover art
The Chimes cover art
The Best of Friends cover art

Critic reviews

"Hadley is a writer of exceptional intelligence and skill and, for all the apparent conventionality of her vision, hers is a subtly subversive talent." ( Observer)
"There is something reassuring yet deliciously unexpected about a Tessa Hadley novel." ( Daily Telegraph)
All stars
Most relevant  
For me, the slow discovery of meaning, and underlying causes, that revealed itself to the reader, while getting pulled into the subtleties of each character, rang very true to life!
Becoming aware of the underlying patterns of ones life, and that of others, requires patience. This might feel boring to some, but to me it felt very accurate!

meaning, slowly,revealing itself.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The writing is remarkable; vivid descriptions of places and sensitive understanding of people and their feelings and motives, but what a pity she didn't have a story to tell . The "events" are left to the closing pages, but it's a bit late then.

But....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love Tessa Hadley’s style and it is almost enough to just spend time in her perfectly described nuanced world, but after Late in the Day, which fascinated me, not enough happened in this book to really satisfy.

Beautifully read but the story is a bit thin

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The womb-like atmosphere of extended family congregating in a long-known place of history and tradition rang true for me. A story of subtleties rather than pace. I enjoyed being lulled into it's claustrophobic atmosphere.

Loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is by far the worst book I have ever read/listened to. I lived in the hope something would happen, but the story is just utterly pointless

Awful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very boring, slow and uninteresting. Very little happens and I was not interested in any of the characters.

Boring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Struggled to finish. Felt nothing for any of the characters. Couldn't see the point to the story. I will not read any more of her books given the style of writing

disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I kept expecting the story to go somewhere. unfortunately for me, it was dull. Maybe there was a message I missed.

I just didn't get this one at all

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Regrettable purchase
Kept waiting for a storyline of sorts. Only positive was.the use of language.

So.disappointing.nothing happens.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.