For some reason, not at all planned, the first three books I’ve read this year have focused on childhood and the traumas that inform adulthood. Old Filth, the first book of Jane Gardam’s Old Filth Trilogy, is dedicated to “Raj Orphans and their parents”; also called “Empire orphans,” these  children were born in the far flung reaches of the British Empire and then shipped back to England by the time they were 4 or 5 years old to be raised by foster parents while their […]