New Yorker Fiction Review #209: "Cecilia Awakened" by Tessa Hadley



Review of a short story from the Sept. 17th issue of The New Yorker...

Tessa Hadley short stories are always well-crafted but usually bore the living sh*t out of me. Sorry. This one was different, for some reason. Maybe I'm just getting used to her style or learning to appreciate it, or something?

Her stories are usually about the inner lives of pensive, wispy, pre-teenage or teenage girls, a subject matter and character type not particularly close to my heart. But in "Ceclia Awakened" she manages to really accurately capture the awkwardness of an emerging teenager and -- most importantly -- the awkwardness she inflicts upon her older-than-average parents, by upsetting the delicate balance of their relationship with her while on a family trip to Italy.

There is something very rich and vivid about the details Tessa Hadley presents in the story, the way she captures the changes that go on inside Cecilia's inner world and how those changes lead to actions her parents struggle to understand.

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