Gardam, Jane: Last Friends

‘She does fiction as it should be done, with confidence and insight‘ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘[Gardam] writes about love, death, loneliness, money, and madness with such gentle ferocity that she is often compared to Jane Austen, though a closer analogy is with Samuel Beckett. The "Old Filth" trilogy should be read by anyone who has ever been interested in how we become who we are‘ Amanda Craig, Independent on Sunday Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth‘s great rival in work and - though it was never spoken of - in love. Veneering, Filth and their friends tell a tale of love, friendship, grace, the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire and the disappointments and consolations of age. ‘Her writing is immaculately elegant and this humorous, melancholic final volume establishes the trilogy as a modern classic‘ Kate Saunders, The Times