The London Train

by Tessa Hadley

The day after his mother dies Paul learns that his eldest daughter Pia has gone missing. He sets out from Wales in search of her, and when he eventually finds her, living with her lover in a chaotic flat in King's Cross, he thinks at first he wants to rescue her. But instead he finds himself drawn closer to the hub of London, to the excitements of a life lived in jeopardy, to Pia's fragile new family. In the opposite direction, Cora is moving back to Cardiff, to the house she has inherited from her parents. She is escaping her marriage, and the constrictions and disappointments of her life in London. At work in the local library, she is interrupted by a telephone call from her sister-in-law and best friend, to say that her husband has disappeared. Connecting both stories is the London train, and a chance meeting that will have immediate and far-reaching consequences for both Paul and for Cora.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Contemporary, London, Novels, Book Club

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Tessa Hadley is the author of Sunstroke and Other Stories, and the novels The Past, Late in the Day and Clever Girl. She lives in Cardiff, Wales, and teaches literature and creative writing at Bath Spa University.

Reviews

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge Tessa Hadley fan--have loved all her books--and was so excited for this one to come out. And I wasn't disappointed. It is all the things I've adored about her previous work: subtly, beautifully written; smart about what it means to be human. I was fascinated by the comments that remark on how unpleasant both of the main characters are, I suppose because I could see that but wasn't put off by it; in fact, it's one of the things I find most moving about Hadley's work: her ability to create characters who don't behave particularly well, but who are, in spite or because of that behavior, deeply human and sympathetic. I felt for both Paul and Cora, though if they were real people and I actually knew them I might not like them very much. And even though my outward circumstances are very different from theirs, I found myself empathizing, too. I think that's part of Hadley's genius as a writer: she finds what is most human and most loveable in her characters and is able to communicate that in a quietly gorgeous way. Plus she intuits, and then is able to describe with incredible accuracy, feelings and thoughts that seem totally real to me, but that don't often get acknowledged in fiction (or anywhere else). That's part of what gives her writing such depth--that enormous attention to what is usually hidden in us. I kept stumbling on sentences that describe (beautifully, memorably) something I'd felt, even though I hadn't even been aware of it at the time. The fact that she gives words to the inner life makes her work an essential companion for me.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tessa Hadley does not write books in a rush - she takes her time and meticulously plans each word in every sentence.
You cannot go into this story thinking one big, specific thing will happen or that there will be an amazing twist, because the story isn't written that way. It is a beautifully composed story of two independent characters that happen to meet in the middle of the book, and the qualities and quirks of each character are so finely tuned that it feels like you are reading true life.
In the first half of the book, Paul is in London, searching for his missing daughter, Pia who he finds living in a squalid little flat with an unsavoury character. Paul is also having difficulty in his relationship with his wife Elise, and this convinces him to stay with Pia in London for a period of time.
At the other end of the spectrum we have Cora, who has recently lost her mother and is moving away from London, back to Cardiff to empty out her parents' house. She is also having a rough time in her relationship with her loyal but passive husband, Robert. On the train she meets Paul, and lightning strikes.
Such a delicate story, full of deep and desperately emotional bonds between ordinary yet exquisitely nuanced people. Tessa Hadley has created a mini masterpeice with this book. And don't be fooled, it is exactly the right length, not one word or page longer than it needs to be.

[donna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing in this is wonderful. The sentences, the paragraphs, and the narrator (I listened to the audiobook) carried me along. But when I think about the story, I really didn't like this book.

We meet an unlikable man who deserts his wife to move in with his unlikable pregnant daughter and her unlikable friends in a shabby flat in London. Then one day he leaves and goes back to his wife. This is the first half of the book. Then we meet an unlikable woman who is separated from her civil servant husband. We spend some time with her boring life and then she meets the guy (you know, the one we spent the first half of the book learning to dislike) on the train. Their brief encounter is told solely from her perspective and then it ends.

The description of this book and the writing made me expect so much more. Very disappointing.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many months ago, I stumbled upon a short story by Tessa Hadley in The New Yorker. I think the story ended up being a section of her latest novel, Clever Girl. I was instantly absorbed by her writing and ended up reading the rest of her New Yorker stories.

The London Train is my first novel to read of hers. Set in London and Cardiff, it's the interconnected story of two people and how they find an inner meaning to their lives after suffering personal loss. The plot synopsis on here is adequate, so there's no need to be redundant.

This, like all of Hadley's writing I've read so far, is the brilliant illumination of the inner life. She exposes her characters thoughts, emotions, and reasons for the choices they make. Hadley conjures Stanislavsky's method for getting to the bottom of a truth. Why do we do what we do? Why do we behave the way we behave? What is true and what makes it so?

Hadley uses stunning, precise prose. Here's a sentence I underlined for its beautiful construction,

"Cottages that were once homes of agricultural labourers fetched stockbrokers' prices now, as if the countryside was under some sick enchantment, in which the substance of things was invisibly replaced with only a simulacrum of itself."

I don't live in Whales, nor have I spent much time in the UK, but with just one sentence, Hadley highlights the friction between the urbanite English and rural Welsh and makes it possible for a reader a half-world away to be almost present.

The London Train is the first book I'm reading in a Goodreads Group: The Year of Reading Women. More discussion about this book can be found there.

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend of mine says "life is curly, not lived in a straight line". Tessa Hadley writes beautifully of the curly shape of our contemporary lives take. She writes with exceptional clarity of people's thoughts and feelings as they experience detours, re-routings, and switchbacks. The sudden and surprising departures from "normal" that the characters experience shape their decisions and change them irrevocably in both grand and subtle ways. Many of these decisions seem so wrong-headed, even whacky, but they are what propel the characters on their curly, sometimes circuitous, paths. Hadley tells their story vividly and without judgment.

I thought the narrator of the audio book, Juanita McMahon, did a great job of bringing the book to life.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read three Tessa Hadley novels back to back at the time of the publication of her 2019 release Late in the Day
There’s too much that’s similar in the ones I’ve read and I am in no hurry to reach out for others in the back catalogue.
I’m left with the feeling that I want to metaphorically shake every single character. Sex dominates the “plots”. Couplings abound, and since the reader can spot them coming a mile off, and their total recklessness and destructiveness, it rather diminishes any deeper or more original messages.
I could have written the preceding paragraphs here about all three of the books I read. The specifics of The London Train are that a young woman’s (Pia) father (Paul) is seemingly incapable of restraint (he’s already twice married). His come on to Anna, his daughter’s boyfriend’s sister is particularly random and unsatisfactory (for the reader).
A second, almost stand alone, story, includes, separately, two lumbering incompetents (Robert and Gerald), both of whom are deeply uninteresting.
Some Hadley’s phraseology irked me too, and this was a sign that the book had lost me:
“the empty roads weren’t banal as they were in the day”
Banal? ....roads??
The middle class marital shenanigans dominate, and it’s a pity that some of Hadley’s more prescient allusions were lost (this is a book written in 2011). Robert works in the new Borders and Immigration Agency; reference is made to climate change and to Barbara Hepworth/ Greenham Common.
Not a book I would recommend.

[Felice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tessa Hadley keeps proving herself as the kind of writer whose books get better and better. London Train is her fifth novel and I have to say it was wonderful.It was on the long list for the 2011 Orange Prize. Most of the novel is divided into the story of two separate characters but don't think short stories. Think more like Carol Shields Republic of Love.

Story one is about Paul. He lives a thoughtful life in Cardiff with wife #2 and children #'s 2 and 3. He's a poet and a father and an about to be midlife crisis man. His eldest daughter, Pia, #1, is the one whose life he's a part timer in. She lives with her Mother. Paul's life of comfort and untested intellectual liberality is put to the point when Pia disappears and is found pregnant, living in squalor in London with her illegal boyfriend.

Story two is about Clara. She is seeking peace. Clara has spent 25 years working hard teaching other people's children. Her parents have recently passed away and her marriage is in trouble. Clara's much older husband is facing disciplinary actions at work. Like Paul, Clara is a relatively untried liberal intellectual whose life is suddenly in a crisis. Clara moves from the anxiety of her London life to take a job as a librarian in Cardiff.

When Hadley takes these strangers on a train and adds a touch of Brief Encounter you have London Train. In fact this novel really is a contemporary retelling of Brief Encounter. It has the same domestic responsibilities and virtues verses romance and freedom theme. Oh and trains too. In Hadley's version we learn much more about the lives of the characters than we do in Brief Encounter. Like Coward's Laura and Alec, Paul and Clara have reached middle age relatively unscathed and with dreams of hearth and home if not completely intact then at least still glimmering. Unlike Laura and Alec, Hadley's characters are not quietly noble, restrained, 'proper' people. Paul and Clara have left their self absorbed little fingerprints all over their messy lives.

After five very enjoyable novels Tessa Hadley is an old hand at making troubled relationships fresh and entertaining. She stirs up London Train a bit more by playing fast and loose with chronological order. Hadley has made London Train an observationally acute examination of choices and a terrific read. Time to wait for novel #6.

[Natalie Serber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Tessa Hadley. Especially her short fiction. I love her careful attention to details of setting and the amazing intimacy she creates between readers and characters. She is a master at describing a domestic scene in evocative and lyric language. Here for example, she describes the detritus after a party through the eyes of a husband, looking for his wife whom he suspects is being unfaithful.
"Searching everywhere inside the house, he wasn't sure what to expect. Party mess was piled up in the kitchen, dirty plates, sleazy regiments of bottles, leftover food not put away in the fridge. Upstairs, the spare mattresses were dragged out onto the girls' bedroom floor, extra children were curled heaps under duvets or in sleeping bags. All of them were asleep amid signs of wild play cut short, the toy box upended, dressing-up clothes trampled on the floor where they'd been thrown off. He touched the door to the bedroom across the landing, which stood open as always: swinging back soundlessly, it revealed only the landing light trapped in the mirror, the expanse of white counterpane on their bed undisturbed, Elise's make-up bag on the dressing table disgorging pencils, tweezers, pots of colour. The open window rattled on its catch; the flurry of rain had stirred up smells of earth and growth in the garden. Moths batted inside the luminous paper globe on the landing behind him. Elise was extravagantly absent."
Looking at the verbs alone, so much is conveyed (piled, dragged, trapped, upended, trampled) and then layer on the sensory details, the fecund odor after the rain, the mattress dragged onto the floor, moths batting the paper shade, the heaps of girls beneath duvets. All of this description is filtered through the close third point of view of Paul. We slowly move through and take in the house with Paul and our anticipation grows, where is Elise? The description works so hard and yet feels so easy, sleazy bottles, wild play cut short, toy box upended, and then the wonderful use of the adverb, extravagantly! (I believe it was Nabokov who suggested putting the adverb before the verb so the reader experiences a moment of wonder, what is extravagant?) The intimacy is amazing to me, so much interiority, his contradictory feelings of being trapped and being amazed by femininity, revealed in what Hadley makes him notice. In an essay in the Guardian, Hadley says, "The writer has to resist the familiarity, work to find new words and forms to capture the new shapes...the best writing breaks through the skin of the known world." With the above description, I feel Hadley does exactly that, breaks through the skin of the lonely after party house, to describe the internal state of Paul.
Despite all of the above, this was not my favorite Hadley work. To read her at her best, seek out the short stories, particularly the collection Sunstroke.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up as it jumped out of the Orange Prize longlist at me. Not quite sure why it did that as I've never heard of the author before and I don't remember what I read about it or where. All I can remember is something about it being a book of two halves and that they are linked.

I thought it was a great story and one I don't want to say much about as I think all the reviews I've just flicked through (newspaper ones mainly) give away far too much about the characters and the story. I enjoyed coming to it 'cold' with few expectations. Not knowing where/how/why the links would come was good and they didn't come where I thought they were going to though the reviews casually mention them as if they are obvious.

Hadley paints some great character portraits here. There's a class issue underlying some of the relationships which I thought was a bit shakily explored. But on the whole I thought the characters were well drawn and fully fleshed out. And going with the "book of two halves" thing there are really two endings. Neither of which were quite what I expected and mostly I'm glad the author left us at those points.

An author I'll be looking out for again for sure.

[JacquiWine · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a touch of Brief Encounter about The London Train, Tessa Hadley’s 2011 novel featuring two parallel narratives that ultimately come together and connect. In one sense, this wonderfully subtle book can be viewed as an exploration of the fault lines and emotional disconnects in two seemingly stable marriages. Moreover, the story also highlights how these fissures can be exposed by random events, from the sudden disappearance of a daughter to a chance encounter on a train.

Structurally, the book is divided into two sections that initially appear to be separate novellas: The London Train and Only Children. However, by the time the reader reaches the midpoint of the second section, the connection between these beautifully constructed narratives becomes clear.

The first story revolves around Paul, a middle-aged writer and reviewer who lives in Wales with his second wife, Elise, a successful restorer of antiques, and their two young children, Becky and Joni. From an early stage, Hadley hints at an air of restlessness or lack of fulfilment surrounding Paul. Having recently lost his mother, Paul is haunted by dreams of his childhood, gnawing away at the guilt he feels over his infrequent visits before her death. While Elise and the girls provide Paul with a comfortable, loving home environment, he occasionally wishes that his life were more spontaneous and free-spirited – a little like that of his bohemian friend Gerald, a part-time University tutor, who seems to get by on a combination of humous, Scotch eggs and weed. Moreover, an ongoing dispute with his neighbour – the deliberatively obstructive farmer Willis – is a further source of agitation for Paul and Elise.

The story really gets going when Paul’s eldest daughter – nineteen-year-old Pia, from his earlier marriage to Annelies – goes missing from her London home. When Paul tracks Pia down, he discovers she is pregnant and living with the child’s father, a Polish man named Marek, in a squalid flat near King’s Cross. At first, it is unclear whether Marek is a conman, an entrepreneur, or a fantasist, with his dreams of setting up an import-export business for Polish delicatessen goods. Nevertheless, there is something magnetic about this quietly authoritative man and his sister, the equally compelling Anna. Consequently, Paul finds himself getting drawn into their world – to the point where he temporarily leaves Elise after a furious row to camp out with Pia and Marek in their claustrophobic flat.

As soon as Marek and Anna were in the flat, Paul saw that Anna was a force just as her brother was, and that Pia had been drawn to both of them, not just the man. Both moved with quick, contemptuous energy, crowding the place; Paul recognised that they were powerful, even if he wasn’t sure he liked them, and couldn’t understand yet what their link was to his daughter, or whether it was safe for her. (pp. 67–68).

To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2022...

[Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even before Tessa Hadley's The London Train got on to the Orange Prize longlist, I told Trish of TLC Book Tours that I simply had to read it. And as I sat here waiting for my copy, I found that made it to the longlist and even though I hadn't yet read it, was hoping to see it on the shortlist as well. That didn't happen, but I was still glad to finally start reading this very literary book last week.

The London Train is actually two short stories in one book. Or as is the trend now with short stories - two seemingly unconnected stories which are irrevocably connected. Getting into this book, I wasn't aware that there were two distinct stories. When I did know of it, I would have been a tad disappointed had they not been linked. We start off reading about our first protagonist - Paul, and the trip he makes to Birmingham, where his mother has just passed away at an assisted living facility. He is clearly unhinged by her death, even though it was probably unsurprising. The next day, he gets a call from his first wife who tells him that their 20-year old daughter, Pia is missing. When he finally finds Pia in London, he finds her staying in the most unexpected environment - pregnant with a Polish lover who was several years elder to her in a cramped untidy apartment that belonged to the Polish guy's sister. He is completely entranced by what he sees that he moves in with them.

In the other story, Cora separates from her husband, Robert, a civil servant who is facing an inquiry at work. She also leaves her career and moves back to Wales, where she chooses to work in a library. Robert and his sister, Frankie, who is also Cora's best friend want her to reconsider, to return back to Robert, but Cora has decided - there is no other lover, she just wants her solitude. The guarded manner in which she holds herself, not letting a single weak emotion betray her shows that she is hiding something, but it isn't until a third of the story in that we really find out.

The London Train is a very literary work - one of the best I've read in that category. It took me a while to realize that this is not a book to be rushed. Rather, each word, sentence and phrase has to be savored. There is really very little that happens in this book. If I had to summarize the stories, I probably won't need more than a few sentences to tell you what happens from the first to the last page. But none of that would make much sense without actually living the novel. The feelings of despair, loneliness, anxiety, and confusion that the characters feel literally jump out of the page. I ended up feeling the same as the characters as I was reading the book. Paul was clearly very unlikeable. He did have some good attributes, but his annoying characteristics were more dominant. Rather than bring Pia home or leave her free to do as she wished, as any self-respecting father would do, Paul gets enchanted with her decision and wants to live life in the unsafe lane. Maybe that's his mid-life crisis. Besides, even with a supporting wife and two wonderful kids at home, and the recent death of his mother haunting him, he was disillusioned with his life - enough to let go of himself and allow circumstances to take over.

Cora, on the other hand, is too guarded. After her parents' deaths, she revamps their home intending to sell it, but eventually moving into it. The care she puts into maintaining the house's facade and the worry that festers in her mind about anything getting disturbed pretty much mimics the state of her mind. She puts the same energy into masking herself, so much so that she is not able to connect with her best friend at all. For the first many pages, the reader gets the impression that Cora's husband, Robert is just too predictable, too formulaic a person for Cora to handle and so she leaves him. Which is partly true. I found it interesting how the rest of the story tumbled out. I got the sensation that the author was probably teasing the reader, hinting that appearances are deceptive.

The stories are clearly only about Paul and Cora. As with most literary novels, the book left me wondering about the arcs of some of the other characters. As opposed to general fiction, where all characters are usually accounted for by the last page, literary fiction such as this stress more on the mystery and continuity of life. Paul and Cora are clearly very flawed human beings. And reading from the perspective of such characters makes for an interesting experience. Most of the narration happens from Paul's and Cora's perspectives. Though sometimes we get a hint of what the others are thinking, to round up the picture. I won't spill out any details of the time when their stories intersect, but I did feel that that event had more of a bearing on Cora's life than on Paul's. I see something of this sort in many of the books I read - the woman gets even more strongly impacted than the man. You could also see that while Cora tries to set her life in order, Paul tries to upset the status quo. I do think married couples need their own moments of privacy often, but I found it disappointing that Paul found it convenient to just disappear for weeks.

The London Train is however not without its demerits. While the author's writing made the characters' feelings very personal to me, I found it very detached as well. The hyphenated form of conversation was distracting (- You're joking, Paul said. - Your dad's crazy, he's really crazy.). For a book of this type, I would never suggest the double-quotes as a suitable alternative, because that might lend it a sentiment of triviality - more focus will end up being stressed on the conversations themselves as opposed to what the conversations were meant to evoke in the characters and the reader. I do feel that's a fine and necessary line. But I would have preferred a better way of printing those conversations - sometimes I just wasn't sure if it was a conversation or not. Maybe it doesn't matter - the whole stories were probably meant to happen in my head.

I took my own time to rate this book. Halfway through this book, I felt it was a mixed bag for me, but I've been thinking of the book ever since. Which usually means it's pretty thought-provoking. Besides, I absolutely love the title of the book - mainly because once I realized where it came from, it felt smart, succinct and with a world of secrets in that title. This is not a preachy kind of book, in the sense that there are no messages or lessons that you could garner out of it. But it left me thinking about the characters, wondering about their fallibility and their unique responses. How their actions are not just a result of their desires and impulses but also some specific triggers in their lives that make them want to escape. And how most importantly, an action can be judged right or wrong in isolation, but it's not that simple when looked at in context.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating novel about the lives of two people. In a very elegant prose the author describes their lives and their brief meeting. On the surface not a lot happens in this novel, but the psychology and thoughts make it a delicious book.

[Bill · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Thick Slog Through Marital Muck

Hadley, Tessa (2011). The London Train. New York: Harper Collins.

This is a concatenation of two novellas so there are two main characters. In the first half, the main character is Paul, a man from Cardiff in a strained second marriage. His daughter by his first wife disappears and he tracks her down in London, taking the eponymous train. She is living on the edge, squatting in an apartment with an older man and his sister, and she is pregnant. In multiple visits, Paul hangs out with them, sleeping on the floor, trying to convince his daughter to return home, but gradually he comes to appreciate her freedom (and the attractiveness of her boyfriend’s sister).

The second novella features Cora, an unrelated character, a London woman living in Cardiff, working part time in a library there while she renovates a country house inherited from her parents. She is separated from her husband. You’ll never guess who she meets on the London train and develops a passionate affair with.

The premise is trite and the characters did not redeem the story for me because of poor narration. The omniscient-close third-person narrator is intrusive and domineering, telling us how things are rather than letting the characters show themselves.

“Paul felt he must tell Pia about her grandmother, but couldn’t bring himself to do it in front of a stranger” … “[The television] distracted Paul, but the others didn’t take any notice. He felt the absurdity of his playing the part of the offended protective father, given his own history with Pia; and it almost seemed as if Marek understood this, reassuring him to help him out, amused at him.”

Those are some interesting relationship dynamics, but they are not shown by the characters. When characters do interact, and there is very little dialog in the book, the conversations are brief and trivial, not revealing.

It’s the same for Cora’s novella: the narrator tells us, “She was in fact quite wrong about what Robert thought, but she seemed to hear these opinions uttered in his reasonable, reluctant, rather growling voice, which never ran on unnecessarily, but chopped and cut to minimize wasted words, always holding something back.”

That’s a nice description of a dialog the author didn’t write.

Despite some well-observed moments then, the actual writing fails to bring the characters alive, and the storyline lacks page-turning motivation, so the result is merely a thick slog.

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was rather disappointed by this. Split into 2 section, the first narrative concerning Paul was sluggish and turgid-what an unappealing character! The second section was much more interesting-although heaven knows what attraction Cora saw in Paul. There were some nice descriptive scenes in this section-but that alone was not enough to redeem it. Her story was interesting, and I would have much preferred had it been longer, and examined/resolved her issues. The final disappointment was the conclusion-or lack of one. I quite like open ended conclusions-but this came across as a rush to complete the tale, and it really didn't satisfy on this count.Nor were we given any indication whatsoever as to what subsequently happened in Paul's life. Overall, a pretty unsatisfactory read.

[Friederike Knabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tessa Hadley's novel The London Train is written in two parts and in two distinct voices: that of Paul and Cora. It is a story about identity, one's place in family and society, about memory and forgetting and the small things in life...

Paul is a middling middle aged author, married for the second time and with one daughter from his first and two small daughters from his second marriage. When, Pia the twenty-year old drops out of university and then disappears, he leaves his comfortable Welsh ountry life for London in search of her. He does find her and surprising developments and discoveries start from there. It takes him some time to discover that he may be in the middle of a midlife crisis; his actions are not quite convincing to his two wives, his daughter and also himself.

The second part takes us back a few years and we meet Cora, a young woman leaving London for Cardiff where she restores her late mother's house. Her life and marriage in London had left her unfulfilled and she is yearning for the quiet simple life in the country…

It is not difficult to guess that the two protagonists meet – on the London train of the title – and their lives intertwine for a while. In the process we learn more about Paul, less about Cora and even less about the other characters in the novel.

Here two quotes, characterizing Paul and Cora:
Paul had been like that since when he was young; always drawn on by news from elsewhere, always wanting to be beginning again in a new place. But then he had changed his mind, and had wanted to be rooted instead.
Cora imagined herself in an outpost of culture, far removed from the hub, like a country doctor in a Chechov story, ordering books from Moscow.

Tessa Hadley writes fluidly and sensitively; the story is captivating in its own quiet way. We get a sense of the landscape in and around Cardiff and we see a side of London that fits the story. While the drama builds continuously, I did find the ending somewhat too simple. There was a sudden rush that didn't seem fully justified.

One recommendation to readers: don't read any of the publication blurbs: they give too much away of the story.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this were deeply thought provoking, surprising and even beautiful. I like how Hadley takes us deep inside the skin of the not-very-likeable Paul, and shows us intensely his point of view, how the irresponsiblity and irritability that define him seem inevitable from his perspective. The abrupt shift to another narrative (Cora's) is interesting, but I didn't feel like the denouement of Cora's story really worked, nor in the end was I satisified by the rather intellectual thread that holds these two stories togther or the overall pacing. So three stars, although sometimes tempted to 4.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once, Cora believed that living built a cumulative bank of memories, thickening and deepening as time went on, shoring you against emptiness. She had used to treasure up relics from every phase of her life as it passed, as if they were holy. Now that seemed to her a falsely consoling model of experience. The present was always paramount, in a way that thrust you forward: empty, but also free. Whatever stories you told over to yourself and others, you were in truth exposed and naked in the present, a prow cleaving new waters; your past was insubstantial behind, it fell away, it grew into desuetude, its forms grew obsolete.

In the midst of reading several other books, I picked up this one - and it immediately claimed my attention. Tessa Hadley is a favourite contemporary writer of mine. She manages to blend a philosophical bent with relatable situations and characters and her prose is clean and lucid but not too spare. Her characters are not entirely knowable - to the reader, or even to themselves - and that seems right to me.

This book has an ingenious construction that can only be fully appreciated after finishing it. It divides neatly into two halves, with each half narrated by a different character: Paul, in the first half, and Cora, in the second. At first, it's not evident how the stories fit together - but they do, as neatly as tongue and groove construction, although they are completely separate as well.

The storyline contains all of the big themes: death, and other kinds of loss; pregnancy; love, and adultery; work, the gap between intention and unforeseeable outcomes. It's toned-down drama, though - the kind that goes on every day. As the title suggests, the commuter train goes back and forth and for the most part we remain oblivious to what is happening in the minds and hearts of those around us. But every now and then, those lives do intersect.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story kept me relatively interested until the end. I did not care very much about any of the characters, but I think that was the point. Some of them were exceptionally under-developed, in my opinion, and I felt like I didn't have enough background on them to really appreciate what they brought to the story.

This was a hodgepodge of disparate characters whose connections are ill drawn and unsubstantiated. Paul, a father of three living in Wales, steps into a full blown midlife crisis for no discernible reason whatsoever: one day he's whistling Dixie, happy-go- lucky, the next he's `emigrated' to his daughter's London squat where he spends days on end just...wallowing, basically, and lusting after his daughter's friend Anna. Meanwhile, he's left his wife and rather young daughters to fend as best as they can back`at the ranch'. His wife, Elise, knows Paul is a philanderer, but how do you walk away from half a financial proposition when you're raising a young family? Exasperated, desperate and lonely, she clutches on to anything at hand which is `half serviceable', for comfort: in this case a neighbor, Gerald, who is a certified schizophrenic and in the throes of severe mental ups and downs. In her quest for `support' Elise seems to add just one more child to the family. Meanwhile, a bevy of support characters flesh out this parade of highly unlikeable individuals. Paul's daughter Pia is portrayed as a dull waste of space, whom Paul barely tolerates, and his ex-lover Carol is a clingy, desperate woman: just one of many Paul will undoubtedly have. Frankly, not a sympathetic character in sight.

The set up is interesting, but I felt like it never really came together for me. The Paul in the Cora section was so wildly different from the Paul in the Elise section, I could hardly recognize or reconcile him as one in the same. Perhaps that was the author's intent--the setting in which we know someone really effects how we know them. I felt it a struggle to unite the two separate stories, and I'm not sure that that wasn't what the author intended, actually, but it didn't quite leave me satisfied at the end of the book.

Plus, it lacked the perfect prose of "Clever Girl" that I fell so in love with.

[Michael Palkowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Hemingway's conceptualization of the Iceberg Theory, he pointed out that a story writer should omit features or details from a story which seek to make the meaning obvious or give away startlingly obvious details. Meaning he insisted was under the surface and thus probably contingent on the reader and the way that reader happened to approach the text. In The London Train, we have a really simple narrative with the odd indulgent description or two featuring multifarious amounts of plants and gardening terminology, instantiating the nature aspect and indeed the unpredictable (Tussocy, Toadflax, Cranesbill, Linchen, Turmeric et al) The stories are on the contrary quite predictable, the first novella with Paul dealing with his pregnant daughter is full of odd loose ends here and there referring back to other pieces. It seems you were meant to indulge in the assumption that he lured after the girly neophyte and that his stay had ulterior motives, only to be thrown into unbelievable banality at times. Characters are too easily edited out and made relevant without the required depth and consideration that is needed to flesh them out. Paul's ex wife for example has little scope beyond her one dimensional role as a hysterical mother who ultimately has little role to play at all, why she has such conflict with her daughter is never really explained which is fine but the plot hardly engenders me to care at all. Paul's character ultimately has the same problems in that he seems flat and monolithic at times despite the author's intention to signify his complexity in scenes where he "incongruously" seeks to leave the entire country leaving behind his current situation. It just rendered him impulsive and boring. This is really a shame because her writing is rich and at times very impressive visually but is let down by character development and an empty mundane plot. It could be argued that Hadley was utilizing the Iceberg Theory in attempting to create characters independent of the page and characters with a life of their own in the mind of those reading, ultimately however, it was just too thin and dainty for my liking.

[Rosie Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rarely have I taken against one of the main characters in a book as much as I did against Paul in ‘The London Train’.
It’s unusual to become so caught up with a fictional person, and it’s pretty rare for a person to be so well drawn that I’m actively exasperated by their self-absorption!
At first I wondered whether I could cope with reading through to the conclusion, but I kept reading. Just as well I did.
This novel is wonderful; layer upon layer revealed with exquisite dexterity. Lives overlapping and merging until the satisfying finale is pulled out of the hat with an understated flourish.
Is it too much to liken Tessa Hadley to Thomas Hardy?
I stumbled across this book by chance, a beautiful serendipity.
I’ll be reading more of Tessa Hadley’s work.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this novel was lovely, in spite of a certain bloody-mindedness on the part of the two main characters, Paul and Cora. But then I have yet to read a novel by Tessa Hadley that I don’t both love and enjoy. Hadley has a gift for beautiful language, and she seems to have a deep understanding about the varieties of love and a strong sense for how bone-headed moves can sort themselves out without permanent damage. I think she is an unusual author in how well she enables you to sympathize with and understand her less than perfect characters.

Here is one brief description that I especially liked:

“They walked on a single track road so little used that dark moss grew down its middle, and their passing roused washed-pale frail butterflies like dust out of the high hedgerows…..” (p. 268)

[Deb Prins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tessa Hadley is a writer who creates solid, believable characters. You don’t necessarily like them, wouldn’t want to be their friend, but are interested enough in them that you want to know their story.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m ready to move to wherever Tessa Hadley lives and follow her around like a groupie. So much feeling in this. Fans of Anne Tyler, read this woman’s work!

[Helen Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Tessa Hadley creates something great... Two stories.. Keen observations, complicated characters, interesting and engaging. And the writing is sublime.

[Ti · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Short of It:

Understated, quiet and lovely.

The Rest of It:

Paul and his second wife Elise have had issues in the past, but at the moment, they seem to be doing well. That is, until he leaves her to live with his pregnant daughter in a ramshackle flat with a couple of strangers. While Paul struggles to find his place in this new arrangement, Cora finds herself utterly conflicted over her recent separation from her husband Robert. The two stories intersect to create a new dynamic that force these characters to face life, head on.

This is a book of moments. As a whole, it’s very quiet and simple but there are moments within it that beg to be reread, or even read out loud. There is a lilting, pleasing tone to the writing that I found quite enjoyable. Although at first glance nothing much happens, as this is not a plot-driven novel, there is a lot that happens within the characters. Revelations. Realizations. Understanding.

Once, Cora had believed that living had built a cumulative bank of memories, thickening and deepening as time went on, shoring you against emptiness. She had used to treasure up relics from every phase of her life as it passed, as if they were holy. Now that seemed to her a falsely consoling model of experience. The present was always paramount, in a way that thrust you forward: empty, but also free.

Readers who enjoy reflection and contemplative musing will truly appreciate this novel. The writing was lovely and it left me with a deep sense of peace. The London Train was longlisted for the Orange Prize but didn’t make the shortlist. A real shame if you ask me.

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[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tessa Hadley’s The London Train, a novel in two parts, has the unique distinction of being both high-brow and accessible. It’s not written with flowery, over-the-top language, but it’s not colloquial or dull, either. Hadley has a way of introducing us to people that we don’t particularly sympathize with but still feel as though we understand. Upon completing the novel, I can’t honestly say that any of these people could be my best friends . . . but I don’t need them to be. I can read about them and their difficult, messy lives, then move on.

Very introspective, this novel falls into the category where not much actually happens — but so much does. As the story unfurls and reveals more and more about Paul and Cora’s lives, particularly in the past, we’re painted an accurate glimpse of two very interior lives. The novel could have become dry — very, very easily — but, you know? It didn’t. It really didn’t. I started reading on a Friday evening and wound up finishing almost half before my body threatened to pummel me if I didn’t sleep. Hadley’s writing is mesmerizing.

Though it lacked the strong emotional ties I crave to really make a book a favorite, I can certainly see why The London Train was longlisted for the Orange Prize and is generating buzz. The story’s strength, like all good books, lies with the characters. For good or for ill, these were people I really got to know. Without much difficulty, I could probably sketch you a list of their likes and dislikes, pains and triumphs. They’re people who will stay with me, especially Paul. It brings chance encounters to new, romantic and heartbreaking heights.

[Mrsgaskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very absorbing novel, well, two connected novellas really. The first section focused on Paul, a middle-aged writer/reviewer living in rural Wales with his second wife and two young daughters. When the story opens, Paul's mother has just died and he also receives news from his first wife that his twenty-year-old daughter has gone missing. He locates Pia, pregnant and living in a shabby London apartment with her Polish lover. Spurred perhaps by loss and disconnection Paul moves in with them for a time, abandoning his family in Wales. The second novella deals with Cora, in her thirties and separated from her older prominent civil servant husband. She has left their flat in London to renovate the Cardiff house she inherited from her parents. I didn't find either of these characters very sympathetic, especially Paul, was somewhat surprised at the connection between them, and disapproved of the light attitude to pot-smoking of the first section, especially around a pregnant woman. And yet, the writing was excellent and I was drawn into the observation and details of these lives thoroughly, completing the book the day I started it. My favourite character, one I think I might have liked was Frankie, Cora's friend and sister-in-law about whom I would have liked to learn more. There is lots to ponder and discuss in this worthwhile novel but it isn't one that I would recommend to just anyone, even though I liked it myself.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all of Tessa Hadley’s books that I’ve read I liked this very much. Her writing style is sturdy but spare. She provides plenty of plot interest but doesn’t tell you everything straight out; she tells you just enough and let’s you fill in the rest. This book gets better as you go along. I liked the second Cora section better than the first Paul section. The ending is great, the pictures of Cora and Robert in each other’s houses are quite moving and the final section somehow ties the whole book together very effectively (more thematically than plotwise though). It’s an ending that could easily have seemed sentimental but instead feels inevitable and left me with the distinct impression that these characters’ stories would continue after the book’s end. It’s rare for me to be this satisfied with the ending of a book (so often books start out great only to fizzle at the end). I can’t figure out quite how she did it so well here but I wish she’d give lessons.

[Sarah Tittle]

Cannot rate this book, which I finished in one day, because I did not know it's actually 2 novellas. The title piece is gorgeous, and begins all laconic and moody and internal. Then, like a train, it gathers speed and momentum. Very British, in a way that I like, sort of formal and informal at the same time. It's just that, when I thought I still had half a book to go, and was really caught up in the story, it stopped. I felt the wind knocked out of me. I was so disappointed. Not the authors fault, just my own stupidity. Looking forward to reading her newest work.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

huh. was quite surprised how much I enjoyed this. I was hooked and wanted to get back to it all the time. The characters are interesting and not particularly pleasant (that paul is obnoxious and a douche) and I loved the different points of view and how characters intersect one another's stories. It's a quiet, almost gentle novel, but it was captivating and I will be reading more of Hadley's books.