Hatter's Castle
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Hatter's Castle (1931) is the first novel of Scottish author, A. J. Cronin. It is set in the fictional town of Levenford on the Clyde estuary. The plot revolves around many characters and has many subplots, all of which relate to the life of the hatter, James Brodie, whose narcissism and cruelty gradually destroy his family and life. The book was made into a successful film in 1941 starring Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, and James Mason.
The main characters are James Brodie (The hatter and tyrannical patriarch of the Brodie family), Mary Brodie (James' eldest daughter, also one of the central characters, appearing throughout the first and last section of the novel), Matthew Brodie (James' only son and middle child in the family who also plays a significant role in the novel), Nessy Brodie (James' youngest daughter and favourite, who remains one of the background characters until the end of the story), Mrs. Brodie (James' fragile wife who is never treated as anything more than a servant by her husband), Grandma Brodie (James' mother who is being looked after by the Brodie family), Dennis (A young Irishman who has a relationship with Mary), Nancy (James' mistress) and Dr. Renwick (a character who becomes more involved in the Brodie family life towards the end of the novel).
The novel Hatter's Castle should not be confused with the movie which was loosely based on the book. In the film version, there have been many severe plot alterations and character exclusions which have stripped most of its fundamental themes, thus hindering it from functioning as Cronin had originally intended.
The novel begins with some insight into the life of the Brodie household, which is one of strict rules where James Brodie seems to have everyone under his thumb. The main event that triggers the series of unfortunate events in the novel is that of Mary Brodie's relationship with her Irish beau, Dennis. Early in the story, Mary (who has occasionally met Dennis at the library) is invited by Dennis to go to the fair in the town. She sneaks out without her family's knowledge and during the course of the evening makes many decisions which change her life forever. She not only goes to the fair, but later on that night kisses and eventually makes love to Dennis (the first man she's ever loved), which, we later learn, results in pregnancy.
This event of her unwanted pregnancy is the main plot in the first third of the novel, titled "Section One". In this section, we realise that Mary is pregnant, and she makes a plan with Dennis to run away whilst she is six months pregnant, without her parents noticing. But one misfortune leads to the next, and three days before Dennis is due to whisk Mary away from her brutal father, there is a massive storm, and she begins to go into labour whilst carrying the child. Mrs. Brodie stumbles into Mary's room and begins to scream at the fact that her daughter is with child, and calls James himself to sort it out. After being kicked in the stomach repeatedly by her father and thrown out on her face into the pouring rain (whilst in labour), she tries to reach safety. Mary nearly drowns in a river before finding a barn where she gives birth to her premature child, which dies due to these appalling circumstances. To put the arsenic icing on the cake, the moment the baby utters his first cry, Dennis, who was, ironically, travelling on a train to rescue Mary, is killed when the train derails and plunges into the River Tay below. The collapse of the bridge is a dramatic retelling of the actual Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.
