Patrick Gale: ROUGH MUSIC

Taking his elderly parents to a rented cottage in Cornwall, bookshop proprietor Will recalls a childhood holiday in the same location, which shaped the man he has become. His father, retired now, was governor of Wandsworth Prison. In the early story an American cousin joined the family with her widowed father who came close to breaking up the family. In the modern story Will’s sister is married to a bisexual man who is Will’s secret lover. Infidelity – and the price you risk paying for it – is the theme that links the two narratives.

The key character in both stories, which are unravelled in intricate detail, is Frances, Will’s mother. A touch bohemian in Will’s boyhood, she is sliding into dementia in old age but still capable of both breaking and glueing back together the ties that bind her family.

Patrick Gale (whom I wish I’d discovered earlier) writes about life and love in intricate detail. His prose is beautifully structured: “She felt haunted by truths whose significance danced beyond her grasp.” I found the slow pace of this novel offputting at first. But it’s only when events reach crisis points that you realise how emotionally invested you, the reader, are with these people. This is so much more than just another gay novel; it’s about looking for love and safeguarding it when you find it.