The Man in the Wooden Hat

A review by Jaina Sanga

The second in a trilogy, the novel revisits ground covered in Old Filth, but this time it is Betty’s story instead of Edward’s. 

Betty, once Elisabeth McIntosh, was born in Tientsin and raised in a Japanese internment camp. We initially meet her in a second-class hotel in Hong Kong moments after she has received young Eddie Feathers's proposal of marriage. 

Although Betty is not entirely convinced that Feathers is the man for her, she accepts; the marriage makes practical sense, besides she’s not one for passion anyway. But, no sooner has she made this decision, she encounters Terry Veneering, a social climber and Filth's sworn rival in the courtroom. “And it is just one hour too late,” she thinks, as she gazes into his eyes.

The romantic, illicit affair that follows is hardly the point; more engrossing are its consequences over the decades. We witness Betty's evolution from a clever young woman into an imperious matron, and we experience the losses and betrayals that precipitate her transformation. 

Her marriage to Feathers is complicated from the start, and over the course of fifty years, the complexity only intensifies. As British expatriates living in Hong Kong, they are the elite of an empire that will soon dissolve. Against all odds, their marriage endures, and they return to England to live out their years. 

Telling the same story twice, from the vantage point of two different protagonists requires a unique skill, and I kept marveling at the deftness with which Gardam fills in the fissures created in the plot of the first book. 

Both Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat are funny and affecting, the language is precise and compelling. Although the two books stand firmly on their own, when read in conjunction, the story truly soars.