The Whole Day Through

The Whole Day Through

Synopsis

When forty-something Laura Lewis is obliged to abandon a life of stylish independence in Paris to care for her elderly mother in Winchester, it seems all romantic opportunities have gone up in smoke.  Then she runs into Ben, the great love of her student days - and, as she only now dares admit, the emotional touchstone by which she has judged every man since.  She's cautious - and he's married - but they can't deny that feelings still exist between them.

Are they brave enough to take the second chance at the lasting happiness that fate has offered them?  Or will they be defeated by the need to do the right thing?

Taking its structure from the events of a single summer's day, The Whole Day Through is a bittersweet love story, shot through with an understanding of mortality, memory and the difficulty of being good.  In it, Patrick Gale writes with scrupulous candour about the tests of love: the regrets and the triumpths, and the melancholy of failing.

Note from the Author

It was trmendously exciting that Notes From an Exhibition did so well in Australia/New Zealand and I'm keenly aware this was due in no small measure to the support of booksellers across the country.  My next novel, The Whole Day Through, has recently gone to press and I do hope you'll feel able to give it a helping hand.

It's a shorter work than Notes but in some ways no less intense.  Although on one level it's a bittersweet love story it's also, like Notes, a novel about the dynamics of family relationships and the way these shape our ability to love.

Set in the measured course of a glorious summer's day in Winchester, the picturesque Hampshire city where I grew up, it tells the story of Laura Lewis, an accountant, who has stumbled into a passionately revived love affair with a married doctor she hasn't seen since they were student sweethearts twenty years earlier.

So far so ordinary, you might think, but there are flies in the romantic ointment: both Laura and Ben are committed to caring for relatives - she for her brilliant, crippled mother, he for his brother who has Mosaic Down's Syndrome.  Then there are the added complications of her mother being a committed naturist and his brother throwing himself with reckless abandon into a late discovery of sex.

Will Laura and Ben be brave enough to take the second chance at happiness which fate has offered them?  Or will they be defeated by the need, instilled in their obedient childhoods, to do the right thing?  And just what or who drove him to dump her the first time around?

I hope you'll enjoy discovering the answers to these questions as much as I enjoyed concoting them.

About the Author

Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight in 1962.  His father was the prison governor of Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight when Gale was born, and he was brought up in and around prisons. In his 2000 novel Rough Music, the lead character is the son of a prison governor.  He now lives on a farm near Land's End.

Gale was educated at The Pilgrims' School, the choir college for both Winchester Cathedral and Winchester College, then at Winchester College and at New College, Oxford.

Following university he had a range of jobs while he sang for the London Philharmonic Choir and wrote his first novel, The Aerodynamics of Pork while working as a waiter in an all-night restaurant.

His most recent novel is the Richard & Judy bestseller Notes from an Exhibition.

Review

I have been a fan of Patrick Gale since the late 1990's when I first read The Facts of Life - a book that held me utterly captivated from cover to cover.  And, as it's rather tatty state will profess, one that I pass around to my friends time and time again.  I am rather anal about books and can't stand broken spines (thanks John!) so I'm not inclined to lend books out.  So you know it has to be good if I'm willing to share at all costs.  (Having said that, I'm hoping Santa might surprise me with a brand new copy - solely for my own reading pleasure - to take pride of place on my bookshelf... but I digress...)

Given my admiration of Patrick Gale's writing, I jumped at the chance to read his latest offering: The Whole Day Through and I was not disappointed.  Although this novel is shorter in length than what I've come to expect from Patrick, it still delivers all that I adore: intruiging characters, complex relationships, and a moving story which leaves the reader mulling over their own 'what ifs' and 'might have beens'.

I enjoyed the way the chapters alternated between telling this bittersweet love story from the perspectives of the two lovers - providing not only an in-depth explanation of their insecurities, but also a great in-sight of the motivation behind their actions.

Patrick handles each of the characters in The Whole Day Through with tremendous compassion - not only the main characters but also their respective family members who have shaped and defined the people they have become over the years since their first love affair.

The Whole Day Through is an easy, enjoyable read that will leave you reflecting upon your own life and relationships.  Perfect for lazy weekends whilst cowering from cold snaps or whilst lounging under the shade on long hot summer days.

Reviewed by: Franciska

 

 

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