CAAF: Our lady of furtive frisson

This weekend’s New York Times Book Review featured Liesl Schillinger’s review of two new books by Tessa Hadley: a novel called The Master Bedroom and a collection of short stories entitled Sunstroke.
Schillinger writes, “Hadley is so good at miniature — at close focus on a small scene that could be missed if you didn’t look twice — that it’s almost frustrating to read her longer works.” I feel the same, except with the “almost.” Both Accidents at Home and Everything Will Be All Right branched off into multi-generational storylines, and as I read I kept wanting to lop off entire branches of story. As a rule, I’m a great fan of Middlemarchian sprawl, but here the “epic-ness” felt like dead weight: Like seeing a beautifully tailored dress with two sheets tacked onto its hem, trailing out behind. So while I look forward to reading The Master Bedroom, I’ll be reading Sunstroke first.
A few of Hadley’s stories that can be read online:
• “The Surrogate”
• “Sunstroke
• “The Swan”
• “A Mouthful of Cut Glass