It’s often intimated that a kind of literary sexism keeps Tessa Hadley’s low-key tales of home-life heartache from finding more readers. If prejudice is at play, perhaps it clings just as much to her fiction’s unglamorous Englishness, which may go down better in the US magazine market, where it’s first published. Either way, Bad Dreams shows yet again how convincingly she maps the crosscurrents of familial love and spite: in Flight, about estranged sisters, the story pivots wonderfully on the sly rejection of a gift that was itself planted in a secret act of mischief. Another theme is children’s longing for adulthood: in An Abduction, told mainly from the point of view of a neglected schoolgirl, the complexity of the narrative contrasts with the title’s brute force. Hadley’s agile sentences never seek to dazzle, yet showcase her unerring craft nonetheless.
• Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley is published by Jonathan Cape (£16.99). To order a copy for £13.50 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
