In a primitive existence Harry has to battle with both the elements and his own sexuality.įor this novel Gale took as his inspiration his own ancestors finding his grandmother’s handwritten memoir and filling in the gaps about her own father and these gaps have been filled in beautifully. En-route he is befriended by Troels Munck, who with questionable motives finds Harry a way to set up his own homestead in newly allocated land. Harry Cane is a well-off Englishman who has never had to work but when he suffers financial losses and a scandal threatens his family’s standing he sets off to Canada, seduced by posters suggesting he could make his fortune. It is a bit of a departure for Gale- set largely in Canada in the years preceding to just after World War I. From then on, both “Rough Music” and his last novel “A Perfectly Good Man” confirmed that for me and this makes two in a row for him now as this is well up there amongst his best. I really didn’t like “The Aerodynamics Of Pork” (1986) and it was only from his 1996 “Facts Of Life” (perhaps still my favourite) that he really began to win me over and I could see he had the potential to become one of Britain’s best novelists. Our relationship has not always been rosy. This is the ninth Patrick Gale book I have read, taking him up to number 7 on my most read authors list from the twenty years I have been keeping records.
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