The Man in the Wooden Hat (Paperback) ~ Jane Gardam (Author) Cover Art

The Man in the Wooden Hat (Paperback)

By: Jane Gardam (Author)

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Review

"Gardam, a novelist of sublime subtlety and quirkiness, alludes to [the characters' past] hardships with an artful obliquity more devastating than any piling on of documentary detail."

"As to Gardam's pair of novels, what the old song says about love and marriage must be said about them: You can't have one without the other. They are a set, his and hers. To my taste, they are absolutely wonderful, and I would find it impossible to choose one over the other."

"She's the best contemporary British writer you probably haven't heard of; that's how I identify Jane Gardam....[S]he's just added another superb novel to her canon. It's called, THE MAN IN THE WOODEN HAT and it's a companion work to what many Gardam groupies consider her masterpiece, her 12th novel, OLD FILTH....Together, OLD FILTH and THE MAN IN THE WOODEN HAT compose a vivid diptych of a marriage. You don't have to read OLD FILTH first, though you'll enjoy the plot surprises in this latest novel more if you do."

"Funny, intelligent and immensely moving....Gardam's characters...are all fully formed and intriguing, and she has an impeccable way with nuance and detail." (starred review)

Publisher's note

The New York Times called Sir Edward Feathers one of the most memorable characters in modern literature. A lyrical novel that recalls his fully lived life, "Old Filth" has been acclaimed as Jane Gardamas masterpiece, a book where life and art merge. And now that beautiful, haunting novel has been joined by a companion that also bursts with humor and wisdom: "The Man in the Wooden Hat."
"Old Filth" was Eddieas story. "The Man in the Wooden Hat" is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself.
They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister, handsome, fast becoming rich, in need of a wife but unaccustomed to romance. A perfect English couple of the late 1940s.
As a portrait of a marriage, with all the bittersweet secrets and surprising fulfillment of the 50-year union of two remarkable people, the novel is a triumph. "The Man in the Wooden Hat" is fiction of a very high order from a great novelist working at the pinnacle of her considerable power. It will be read and loved and recommended by all the many thousands of readers who found its predecessor, "Old Filth," so compelling and so thoroughly satisfying.

Annotation

Jane Gardam pulls off that marvelous and rare literary stunt of telling the same story twice, and in doing so, creating two novels that perfectly complement and expand upon each other. In OLD FILTH she told the story of the quintessentially repressed and mysterious English man, Edward Feathers, a lawyer born in Malaysia in the waning days of the British empire. Now, in THE MAN IN THE WOODEN HAT, Gardam relates the story but with the focus switched to Eddie's wife, Betty, who has a depth of character and history surpassing her depiction in the first novel. Born in the interment camps of Shanghai during World War II, Betty goes on to become an expert in codes and linguistics before settling down as the typical loyal wife--and even that loyalty is a facade, as Betty has held a lifelong love for Eddie's arch-nemesis, the lawyer Terry Verneering. With an acute sense of class, period, and place, and a wry English wit, Gardam tells the story of Betty and Eddie's long marriage, and their subtle undercurrent of their love.

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