The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
Bad Dreams and Other Stories

Bad Dreams and Other Stories

Summary


The dazzling collection of stories from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Free Love and Late in the Day.

**WINNER OF THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE**


Two sisters quarrel over an inheritance and a new baby. A housekeeper caring for a helpless old man uncovers secrets from his past. A young girl accepts a lift in a car with a group of strangers. An old friend brings bad news to a dinner party.

In these gripping and unsettling stories, the ordinary is made extraordinary and the real things that happen to people turn out to be every bit as mysterious as their dreams.

'These well-turned, exceptionally nuanced pieces are solidly evocative of place, period...and sensory detail' Sunday Times

'Few writers give me such consistent pleasure' Zadie Smith

Reviews

  • Few writers give me such consistent pleasure.
    Zadie Smith

About the author

Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley is the author of eight highly praised novels, Accidents in the Home, which was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Everything Will Be All Right, The Master Bedroom, The London Train, Clever Girl, The Past, Late in the Day, Free Love and four collections of stories, Sunstroke, Married Love, Bad Dreams and After the Funeral. She won the Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction in 2016, The Past won the Hawthornden Prize for 2016, and Bad Dreams won the 2018 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her stories appear regularly in the New Yorker.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more