The Man in the Wooden Hat
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Old Filth was Eddie’s 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 fulfilment 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.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
We meet Sir Edward Feathers and his wife, Betty in Old Filth, but more of their secret selves are revealed in this eloquent look at memory and marriage.
Jane Gardam’s sequel to Old Filth, a story of the melancholy childhood of Eddie Feathers, aka Old Filth, invites the reader to enjoy a happier story of Edward Feathers’ marriage to Betsy, a woman with her own tragic childhood. Gardam’s treatment of the relationship endears readers more deeply to Filth. She reveals depth in the characters without becoming sentimental. Their story neither dramatic nor mundane, but Gardam’s prose draws the reader into the story as a flower draws the eye to a garden. In both instances, the effect is beautiful and mesmerizing.