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Patrick Gale
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Dangerous Pleasuresby Patrick GaleISBN 0006547699 (0-00-654769-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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Dangerous Pleasures: A Decade of Storiesby Patrick GaleISBN 0002253836 (0-00-225383-6)
Hardcover, Flamingo
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dangerous Pleasures: A Decade of Stories'Book summary:A collection of short fiction from Patrick Gale. His subjects vary from curious childhood loyalties, long-hidden unsettling memories, newly-discovered joys and dislocated relationships to overwhelming passions. [via]
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Facing the Tankby Patrick GaleISBN 0006545459 (0-00-654545-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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The Facts of Lifeby Patrick GaleISBN 0006547680 (0-00-654768-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Facts of Life'Book summary:Spanning three generations, the first half of this novel focuses on Edward and Sally, who can't find happiness until Edward can forget his dark past in Germany's prison camps. The second half continues with the lives of Edward's grandchildren, Alison and Jamie, searching for independence and love. [via]
Friendly Fireby Patrick GaleISBN 0007151047 (0-00-715104-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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Kansas in Augustby Patrick GaleISBN 0006545467 (0-00-654546-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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Rough Musicby Patrick GaleISBN 000655220X (0-00-655220-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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A Sweet Obscurityby Patrick GaleISBN 0007151020 (0-00-715102-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Sweet Obscurity'Book summary:A moving and intensely felt examination of the steps to which we will go to seek protection and security in others. Returning to haunted Cornish landscapes familiar from other Gale novels, it is the story of individuals in search of a family. Dido, the nine-year-old heroine and emotional centre of Patrick Gale's latest painful comedy, knows that the adults who surround her, the adults who should know better, depend on her for happiness. So who is she to turn to when her short life turns upside down and tragic family history threatens to repeat itself. Eliza, the clever, depressive aunt who has brought Dido up, and whose brilliant academic career has foundered due to the demands of unlooked-for motherhood, tries and fails to give Dido the happy normal childhood she never had herself. Her ex-husband Giles needs Dido back in his life, feeling it has lost all meaning, all substance, without her. Then there is Pearce, the new love interest in Eliza'a life, desperate to give Eliza and Dido the security and protection they need. But will Eliza let him? Does she love him or is she using him to restart a stalled career?Only Dido, unheard of in the clamour of others' needs, has the power to make or break the happiness of these children in adult clothing. [via]
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Tree Surgery for Beginnersby Patrick GaleISBN 0006550746 (0-00-655074-6)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tree Surgery for Beginners'Book summary:Patrick Gale is an original--at once very old-fashioned and very modern. Not for nothing has he been called "the Barbara Pym of the liberated set." In his warm, subversive comedies, characters of all sexual identities and ambiguities dance through endless configurations and marvelously contrived plots. And this English author's eighth novel, Tree Surgery for Beginners, is as full of coincidence and pleasurable surprise as ever. It begins, however, with a shock to the reader's system: arborist Lawrence Frost returns home after a night in his beloved Wumpett Woods to signs of great violence. Worse, he himself is the culprit, having beaten his wife in a jealous rage. Now Bonnie has, quite sensibly, fled with their daughter, Lucy--but even as our tree surgeon determines to make things right, a burnt, dismembered body that could well be Bonnie's turns up.
As Gale paints in Lawrence's background, he also provides strong, instant portraits of his mother, Dora; her twin brother, Darius; his father-in-law, and their town. Barrowcester (pronounced "Brewster") is alas a place where Lawrence will never again be at home--even after mother and child turn up safe. Not to worry, though, since the author next sends him and Darius on a rollicking Caribbean cruise. As constraints are loosened all around--on the Paulina, in the English provinces, and in Chicago, where Bonnie and Lucy end up--Lawrence cannot escape his emotional limbo. But then Lala, a chanteuse of a certain age and uncertain gender, captivates him:
He could not remember having his thoughts so jangled by the suggestiveness of a clothed female form since he fell in love with his French teacher at ten and began to receive even poorer marks than usual.
Gale obviously adores his characters--including the possible transsexuals, definite murderers, and religious zealots--as much as he relishes working out his Shakespearean twists. (Tree Surgery for Beginners features the cameo appearance of a marauding but perhaps indecisive tiger.) Readers will be divided into those who delight in watching the author weave his people and plot strands together, elevating love over propriety, and those who consider him absolutely shameless. Few, however, can object to Gale's irreverent, bawdy vision of possibility and acceptance. --Kerry Fried [via]
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