Mrs. Harter

The scandalous Diamond Harter returns to Cross Loman, and the village has never recovered. Three years after her disastrous marriage, Diamond comes back to the small English town that half-resentfully received her. But here is the trick: we never see Diamond directly. We see her only through the fractured mirrors of her neighbors' opinions, each one certain they know who she really is. The vicar's wife recalls her kindness. The major's widow remembers her arrogance. Captain Patch, newcomer to the village, finds himself intrigued by a woman everyone warns him against. E.M. Delafield constructs a brilliant comedy of perception where the entire village discusses, dissects, and judges a woman they've constructed between them. The result is a sharp, compassionate portrait of small-town English life and the stories we tell ourselves about each other. Diamond Harter becomes a Rorschach test for every character in the book, revealing their own prejudices, their own desires, their own need for a scandal to animate dull lives. For readers who adore Barbara Pym, the earlysatires of Evelyn Waugh, or anyone who knows that the most interesting person in any room is the one everyone is whispering about.