This month’s read is Tessa Hadley’s Vincent's Party. It was published in the July 1, 2024 print edition of TheNew Yorker. If you prefer audio, here's Hadley reading her story:
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Once you’ve read the story, join in the conversation below!
Hi Mek! Thanks again for recommending this wonderful story. I felt absorbed in the world and in the characters’ heads. I loved that there was this lingering threat for most of the story, how Hadley has set this up early on by cancelling out the parents quite overtly. Some of the observations / interactions are a real joy to read. Like: ‘“He’s got all the ingredients but somehow he isn’t attractive. Not to me at any rate.” / Moira’s discriminations were subtle and absolute.’ And: ‘someone had told her once that you should aim to make the other women in the room look overdressed.’ It seems like there’s this potential menace coming from everywhere: from the dynamic between the sisters, social expectations, how the characters negotiate those expectations, how they identify and resist them. I’m definitely going to track down this novella! Thanks for sharing. Kristen (PS. I’d personally leave the probably’s where they are bc the metre of the sentence depends on them landing at the beginning of each clause).
Yes, I spent the whole time suspicious of all the men they encountered, anticipating a malicious turn. Yes, so many great observations and insights into silly games and insecurities. You are so spot on about the metre ... I read it aloud and it isn't as effective written the way I'm used to seeing 'probably' in a sentence. I also realised the syntax brings the reader closer to the characters thoughts, as in it captures the gist of the thought and not necessarily the thought verbatim—this is the first time I've considered this ... we don't necessarily think in fully formed sentences. I had never thought about how to capture thought non-literally.
Ok, let's reconvene here once we've read the novella 🎉
Such a compelling read. It feels alive on the page, and I think it's largely because of Hadley's vivid rendering of place, characters, social constructs and internal chatter. The characters are prisoners of their own bullshit, with the exception of the dorky, charming Donald. I love how Evelyn has a momentary embodied experience of the thought that '... bodies were sometimes wiser than the people inside them.' A thought that surprises her and fills her with a sense of its profoundness, but it goes unshared because she doesn't have the courage to express it in the company of a dick Sinden.
By the second last page, it feels like the real story has just begun. I wanted to read on. And OMG (she says, returning from an online search), turns out it's based on Hadley's novella 'The Party'. I do love a novella.
Oh, an interesting thing I noticed in a few instances was the placement of 'probably' in a sentence. For example: "Probably there wasn't really any other party, she thought; probably Josephine was hurrying to meet..." In the first usage here, I'd have put it after 'there', and in the second after 'was'. I need to spend a bit of time in deep grammar with this one.
And how good is this sentence: "... the darkness anyhow seemed thinner up here at the top of the building."
The Party is now on my TBR. It will be out late October/early November this year.
Hi Mek! Thanks again for recommending this wonderful story. I felt absorbed in the world and in the characters’ heads. I loved that there was this lingering threat for most of the story, how Hadley has set this up early on by cancelling out the parents quite overtly. Some of the observations / interactions are a real joy to read. Like: ‘“He’s got all the ingredients but somehow he isn’t attractive. Not to me at any rate.” / Moira’s discriminations were subtle and absolute.’ And: ‘someone had told her once that you should aim to make the other women in the room look overdressed.’ It seems like there’s this potential menace coming from everywhere: from the dynamic between the sisters, social expectations, how the characters negotiate those expectations, how they identify and resist them. I’m definitely going to track down this novella! Thanks for sharing. Kristen (PS. I’d personally leave the probably’s where they are bc the metre of the sentence depends on them landing at the beginning of each clause).
Yes, I spent the whole time suspicious of all the men they encountered, anticipating a malicious turn. Yes, so many great observations and insights into silly games and insecurities. You are so spot on about the metre ... I read it aloud and it isn't as effective written the way I'm used to seeing 'probably' in a sentence. I also realised the syntax brings the reader closer to the characters thoughts, as in it captures the gist of the thought and not necessarily the thought verbatim—this is the first time I've considered this ... we don't necessarily think in fully formed sentences. I had never thought about how to capture thought non-literally.
Ok, let's reconvene here once we've read the novella 🎉
Such a compelling read. It feels alive on the page, and I think it's largely because of Hadley's vivid rendering of place, characters, social constructs and internal chatter. The characters are prisoners of their own bullshit, with the exception of the dorky, charming Donald. I love how Evelyn has a momentary embodied experience of the thought that '... bodies were sometimes wiser than the people inside them.' A thought that surprises her and fills her with a sense of its profoundness, but it goes unshared because she doesn't have the courage to express it in the company of a dick Sinden.
By the second last page, it feels like the real story has just begun. I wanted to read on. And OMG (she says, returning from an online search), turns out it's based on Hadley's novella 'The Party'. I do love a novella.
Oh, an interesting thing I noticed in a few instances was the placement of 'probably' in a sentence. For example: "Probably there wasn't really any other party, she thought; probably Josephine was hurrying to meet..." In the first usage here, I'd have put it after 'there', and in the second after 'was'. I need to spend a bit of time in deep grammar with this one.
And how good is this sentence: "... the darkness anyhow seemed thinner up here at the top of the building."
The Party is now on my TBR. It will be out late October/early November this year.