A first collection of short stories from Patrick Gale, written over a ten year period'Nattily subversive, sexually ambiguous, intelligent and disturbing. The prose sizzles with acidic observation' Sunday TimesA funeral party ends in an unexpected manner; parents are faced with difficult decisions about their daughter; a housewife transforms her personality with a simple touch-up; a father's trip to his former school brings back mem...

From the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER comes a new novel of boyhood, coming of age, and the confusions of desire and reality. For all readers of Ian McEwan's ATONEMENT or L P Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN.1970s Weston-Super-Mare and ten-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother's quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons. Music-making brings release for a boy who is discovering he is an emotional volcano. He laps up lessons from h...

Beautifully written and deeply compassionate, Rough Music is a novel of one family at two defining points in time. Seamlessly alternating between the present day and a summer thirty years past, its twin stories unfold at a cottage along the eastern coast of England.Will Pagett receives an unexpected gift on his fortieth birthday, two weeks at a perfect beach house in Cornwall. Seeking some distance from the married man with whom he's having an affair, he invites his aging mother an...

THREE DECADES OF STORIES is a unique collection in one volume of Patrick Gale's two editions of dark, moving, often witty and eccentric stories, GENTLEMAN'S RELISH and DANGEROUS PLEASURES. It also includes the acclaimed long story, CAESAR'S WIFE.Ranging from a lonely prisoner governor's wife, to a housewife desperate for a makeover; a father's trip to his former school to a long-term mistress offered an unexpected marriage, this is a volume that hi...

Gentle, witty and sometimes disturbing, DANGEROUS PLEASURES is Patrick Gale's first collection of much loved short stories'Nattily subversive, sexually ambiguous, intelligent and disturbing. The prose sizzles with acidic observation' Sunday TimesA funeral party ends in an unexpected manner; parents are faced with difficult decisions about their daughter; a housewife transforms her personality with a simple touch-up; a father's trip...

THE AERODYNAMICS OF PORK - an irresistible story of love, sexuality, music and comedy - is the first novel from the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER and NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION, first published in 1986'A master storyteller' Independent on Sunday'Gale's concoction is irresistible: modern relationships with period charm' Armistead MaupinSeth, a musical prodigy on ...

'Miraculous, mischievous and quietly devastating' Rachel Joyce'A tender, delicately devastating novel' Sarah Waters' An engulfing, deeply humane novel about the triumphs and failures of human connection' Marina KempA journey. A reunion. A longing for a place called home...When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane sails home to an England transf...

Bittersweet and startling, A SWEET OBSCURITY is a multi-stranded novel of childhood, coming of age and the heartbreaking consequences of family life in disarray...'Intriguing and impressive. A memorable study of a child forced cruelly, even tragically, to grow up too soon' Sunday TimesSince her mother's death, nine-year-old Dido has been living with her eccentric aunt, acting as peacekeeper between Eliza, her estranged husband Gile...

'Tender, evocative' TLS 'Richly engaging' Spectator A Radio 4 Serial Fiction Book of the Week'A characteristically tender novel about a young man growing up in the shadow of one war and the whispers of the next' Observer'A wonderful novel about relationships, particularly between a mother and son. A compelling read, beautifully crafted and sensitively writ...

Set in the late 1980s, Patrick Gale's early novel is a charming, funny story of love and life teetering towards the edge'Richly comic, affectionate and perceptive' Mail on SundayEight years ago, Robin fled from his family, friends, and entire life, to suffer a complete breakdown in an island monastery. Now he's returning to London and reconnecting with those he left behind: his mother and father, with their own small secrets, and J...

One of Patrick Gale's best-loved novels, NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION, set in Cornwall, is the exquisite story of artistic compulsion, marriage, and the secrets left behind'Poised and pitch-perfect throughout' Mail on Sunday'This book is complete perfection' Stephen FryCelebrated artist Rachel Kelly dies alone in her Penzance studio, after decades of struggling with the creative highs and devastating lows that ...

"Patrick Gale has written a book which manages to be both tender and epic, and carries the unmistakable tang of a true story. I loved it." -- Jojo MoyesA privileged elder son, and stammeringly shy, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of his muted existence - until the shock of discovery and the threat of arrest cost him everything.Forced to abandon his wife and child, Harry si...