BY HER OWN RECKONING, British writer Jane Gardam is foremost an author of the British Empire, and so Americans already crazed on Downton Abbey, Sherlock, and the BBC 2/HBO miniseries Parade’s End should be foaming at the mouth for her Raj Orphans, intervening dowagers, cucumber and watercress tea sandwiches, and love unconsummated. She’s well known and well loved in Britain. In fact, she’s the only Brit to win the prestigious Costa Award twice, she’s Booker nominated, and she’s an officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) which makes her not quite yet Dame Gardam, but then again, a lot closer to it than most of the writers you and I know. But for some reason, we’re not connecting on this side of the pond. There have been a few efforts to introduce her to American readers. The New York Times, to its credit, has written rave reviews of her work several times, yet still her sales are low. Why? In 2006, the best The Times could do was to be philosophical about it, suggesting that “some bromide about the literary life being as unfair as the normal one would have to do.” In 2010, The Times turned to magical thinking when it hoped that the release of her 12th novel, Old Filth would “break the bad spell” of her obscurity in America. It only sort of did.

But for those of us who looked forward to the release of her latest book, Last Friends, with the same kind of passionate anticipation as one might for, say, a new Terrence Malick film, the puzzle of her obscurity is the least of our problems. Gardam is 85; our time with her is precious. It’s not enough that her books may well find the audience they deserve in the future — here is an author who should be honored in her own lifetime. And if altruism doesn’t hook you then consider that her books are old-school marvelous — the kind you can deep dive into, forsaking your cell, your kids, and most importantly, your cares for days. She is the best kind of literary escape: serious, mesmerizing, and deeply satisfying. Who, in these times, doesn’t need this kind of palliative? 

One way to describe the novels of Jane Gardam is to say they are a taxonomy of ordinary madness, and by that I mean the kind of madness that does not require a visit to an institution, or at least, not often. What I do mean is an insanity that is a state of being in extreme confusion due to circumstances you don’t understand, can’t control, and can’t possibly have foreseen. Like taking tea in china cups in a trench in a war zone in France, for example. Or showing your loyalty to a parent who is dead by marrying someone you don’t love. Gardam is merciless about it and also funny. She is right up there with J.G. Farrell and Samuel Beckett when it comes to shaking out the varieties of bewilderment, uncertainty, and delusion that rattled the 20th century. And because her characters are loveable and relatable, her books are in some ways more frightening than those of her modernist peers. You don’t really want to hang out with Vladimir and Estragon, whereas Gardam’s heroes are the sort of people you’d adore having to dinner. When they suffer it’s just that much more painful. Here, perhaps, is a clue to why we’re not reading her — maybe we’re avoiding what her books are telling us about the end of an empire. Her characters are kind, well-meaning folk who get progressi...