Le Chapeau de Mitterand by Antoine Laurain: book review

Le Chapeau de Mitterand (The President’s Hat, 2012, English version 2013) begins in Paris in November 1986.

Accountant Daniel Mercier is at the train station to greet his wife and son who have been on holiday in Normandy. Mercier is wearing President Francois Mitterand’s black felt Homburg hat. The day before he was at a restaurant when the president sat at the table next to him. When the president left, he had forgotten his hat. Instead of trying to return it, Mercier stole it.

The hat turns the quiet Mercier into a more confident man. Even his work colleagues notice his ‘calm demeanour, air of assurance, the extraordinary way he had of saying the unpalatable with the utmost tact … true class!’ Wearing the hat, touching the hat, and even having it close to him gives him a feeling of authority and ‘immunity to the torments of everyday life.’ It sharpened his mind and gave him the ability to make important decisions.

But one day he leaves it on the train. Fanny Marquant, a secretary in a regional tax office, boards the train. She is on her way to Paris for her regular meeting with a married man. It is raining and she sees the hat. Inside the hat are the initials F.M. – her initials. She wears it with her denim, mini-skirt, high heels, and silver jacket. Wearing the hat makes her feel powerful with an air of distinction.

Grey-bearded 52-year-old perfumier Pierre Aslan sees a black felt hat on a park bench. He is on his way to see his psychotherapist for his depression. The smell of the hat is familiar – one scent is a man’s aftershave and the other is a woman’s perfume: the perfume he created eight years ago.

Bernard Lavalliere is at a restaurant with his friends, where they argue about Francois Mitterand and politics. The cloakroom attendant gives him the wrong hat. If it weren’t for the hat he would never have spoken to his neighbour and accepted an invitation to an art gallery. But one morning as he is buying his daily newspaper, the hat is stolen right off his head.

Each story links the characters together through the hat. And each person feels like a changed person, just by wearing this hat. ‘It had the power of destiny’ and each person’s destiny is changed – for the better.'

Laurain’s writing is easily readable and wholly engaging, painting a picture of each character’s life and lifestyle as they undergo personal transformations that impact their fate and fortune. The narrative dips in the middle as Daniel Mercier continues to find the hat – his lost hat. But the beginning and the ending are solid and enjoyable. Overall, it’s a wonderful novel about the sequence of decisions and actions that lead to important events in people’s lives.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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