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Mad Hatter
Guernica Editions, Fall 2019
462 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781771833905
ISBN10: 1771833904
English
$29.95 Canada, $29.95 US, £15.00 UK
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When Christopher Brooke is arrested under Regulation 18B in June 1940, a slow process of personal disintegration begins, affecting his family irreversibly. Irish farm girl Mary Byrne is hired as housekeeper for the Brooke household and proves an acute observer of the daily lives of Cynthia Brooke and her three children. But when Mary is shockingly expelled from the house upon Christopher's release from internment, 15-month-old Katie -- conceived on a prison leave and now speaking from adulthood -- takes over as narrator. Moving from the pre-war political era of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Mad Hatter delves into the wartime lives of Britons, and tracks them into the aftermath in a disturbing but ultimately transcendent story of a daughter's search for family history. Mad Hatter charts the gradual unravelling of a marriage and the tightening of its children in the devastation of post-war England as the story of the Brooke family moves inexorably to a tragic conclusion in which Mary Byrne is once again embraced by the family, but in a most surprising manner.
The head of our family was missing, drowned they said, and I, a slow but persistent swimmer and a believer in magic, spent my childhood diving for him, over and over, coming up gasping for air, not knowing whom I sought.
A beautiful book about a difficult story. This fictionalized memoir, following Christopher Brooke from pacifism into delusional extremism, is told with subtlety and compassion. I am left exhilarated by Amanda Hale’s ability to tell her experience with such insight and candour.
Susan Crean, author of Finding Mr. Wong
If you think the fascist politics of Oswald Mosley is old hat, read Mad Hatter and think again. Amanda Hale, drawing on childhood experience, brings emotional intelligence to bear on the fatal marriage of personal and political.
Ted Goodden, author of Glory Boy
Twelve years in the planning and six in the writing, Mad Hatter is an intense and tragic book, a synthesis of fiction, memoir, and creative non-fiction. Its primary subject is the misguided political endeavours of Christopher Brooke, an early disciple of Oswald Mosley, an organizer for the British Union of Fascists, and eventually a self-styled prophet of the rebirth of the Kingdom of God—destined to rise, preposterously but also distressingly, out of the ashes of Hitler’s failed campaigns.
Hilary Turner, Canadian Literature
Reviews
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Mad Hatter
Historical Novel Society - November 1, 2019
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Mad Hatter by Amanda Hale
Ottawa Review of Books - November 2, 2019
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Mad Hatter
Pacific Rim Review of Books - April 20, 2020
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The Ripple Effect: Mad Hatter & Rue des Rosiers
Canadian Literature - September 30, 2020
Books by Amanda Hale
