Michele Zackeim of SVA's Summer Reading Friday Picks: "“Every character is marvelously intricate and sated with lop-sided, yet sane identities."

The Man in the Wooden Hat, Last Friends and Old Filth by Jane Gardam are three novels that could, really should, be read in order. When I finished the last novel, I had to take a walk around the block to work off my disappointment that there wasn’t a fourth. The writer revisits most of the same characters in all three books and you care about them with all your heart. It has been said that Gardam can be compared to Dickens. I agree. Every character is marvelously intricate and sated with lop-sided, yet sane identities. As Gardam famously quipped, “If I’ve got one thing I really believe about fiction and life, it’s that there are no minor characters.” Thank goodness.