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Author Patrick Gale joining us on for a chat on Tuesday 16th June between 1 and 2pm

116 replies

RachelMumsnet · 11/06/2009 11:42

Patrick Gale, author of Mumsnet Best Award winner, Notes from an Exhibition will be joining us for a chat and to tell us about his new book, The Whole Day Through. If you're unable to join us on Tuesday please send your questions in advance to Patrick here.

OP posts:
thumbwitch · 11/06/2009 23:40

Shouldn't this be a sticky?

I'm just reading Notes from an exhibition now - it's a fantastic book.

Blu · 12/06/2009 19:01

Rough Music is brilliant, too.

foxinsocks · 12/06/2009 19:45

OMG

I love Patrick Gale.

I will be at work then but if he's reading this, we try and go to Penzance every year because we love it so and when I read his books, I often feel completely transported down there, his imagery of Cornwall so vivid .

Didn't know he had a new book out! Will go and find it.

FrannyandZooey · 12/06/2009 19:56

ooh i LOVE patrick gale
have been a fan for years
i really like his early stuff very much - so funny and i love the quirky and alternative characters
i think i like facing the tank the best - i love hagiography and i like all the confusions and misunderstandings - quite shakespearian - and just the lovely gentle wit and sympathy for humanity

oooh i am PLEASED

foxinsocks · 12/06/2009 19:58

ooh franny, I'm glad you will be here then.

You can represent my enthusiasm I think, if you don't mind

FrannyandZooey · 12/06/2009 20:02

HELLO PATRICK
please do speak to me
I am unable to join you on Tuesday as will be away
I love your work very much
Who are your favourite characters, please? Firstly, from your own books, and then, favourite characters from fiction generally

I would like to go and read all your books again right now but I lent most of them to another MNer oddly!

Can I also fawn a bit more and say you have one of the nicest author photographs I have ever seen
As a bookish teenager I used to spend quite some time familiarising myself with the inside back cover

FrannyandZooey · 12/06/2009 20:03

sorry fox i will be in london (10 / 10 meet)
i will have to express enthusiasm for both of us from a distance of several days

i bet 100 likes him
she can ask clever questions

InTheseShoes · 12/06/2009 20:10

swoons

Unfortunately I won't be able to be here on Tuesday but I just wanted to say that I think that you are a fantastic author, I have loved every one of your books that I have read, they made me laugh and cry. The Whole Day Through is a wonderful book, and please keep writing.

Thank you

foxinsocks · 12/06/2009 20:13

are you implying that ahundred isn't coming to your meet up ?

yes rope her in Franny. She can represent us and be all swoony. You better tell Anne not to turn up.

FrannyandZooey · 12/06/2009 20:47

yes funny that isn't it?
she claimed to think it was next month

yappybluedog · 12/06/2009 20:56

he is a very handsome talented writer

tassisssss · 12/06/2009 21:03

well i've just finished the whole day through this minute and i don't like the ending one bit.

loved notes from an exhibition though

Concordia · 12/06/2009 21:20

well, i have just read my first novel since conceiving my first child (he's 3 this weekend so i had a bit of time without reading any novels at all) and it was one left in our holiday cottage.
picked it up and read it until 3 in the morning a few nights till it was finished.
it was 'Notes from an Exhibition'.
I haven't relaxed so much in ages. I was still thinking about the characters when we got home. I felt as if i'd actually met them....
I don't think i'll be reading any more novels for a while as i need a bit of sleep, but i have earmarked another Patrick Gale for the next one. What do people suggest?

LaDiDaDi · 12/06/2009 21:33

I'm very sad that I'll be at work and miss this.

I read Rough Music quite a while ago and Notes from an Exhibition this year. Great books.

sphil · 12/06/2009 23:00

OK, so shameless name-dropping here - I can't resist it. I know Patrick Gale! Well, used to know him - we were at university togther about 300 years ago...
He was lovely then - used to lend me his Anglo-Saxon translations . And he was in a play wot I directed.

Blu · 12/06/2009 23:59

Dear Patrick Gale.

I am very happy that a new book is out. HOW will I resist reading it before my holiday? Because I won't enjoy anything else as much, and I don't want to spoil my hol reading some crap from the R&J book club list, thinking 'I could be reading The Whole Day Through, now. Can you suggest some slightly inferior but nevertheless satisfying books to keep my mind off yours between now and mid August?

Thank you,

Blu.

Blu · 13/06/2009 00:00

And, P.S, was sphil any cop as a director?

Blu · 13/06/2009 00:09

And - re the note to Rough Music, in which you take pains to point out that though there are some family co-incidences between your family and the plot. What for you marks the boundary for using personal experience in a novel? Or references to real people? (such as a possible Barbara Hepworth in NfaE?). There is such a sense of authenticity of place and character and family dynamic in your novels, that much must be based on well-observed situations, and it is delicious....but where does the Tiresome Myerson line begin? (I'm certainly not suggesting you have approached it, let alone crossed it)

Blu · 13/06/2009 00:14

Sorry - I didn't finish the sentence at the beginning of that question. "in which you take pains to point out that though there are some family co-incidences between your family and the plot, that is where the similiarity ends".

Obviously succesful novels which rely on finished sentences are not completed 2 thirds down a bottle of cheap red

yappybluedog · 13/06/2009 08:41

Blu, wasn't Notes from an Exhibition on a R&J reading book list..............

supadoula · 13/06/2009 08:43

I have just discovered your books and I find that they just talk to me in a way that very few books do. Feelings are described with such accuracy and depth.
I was very moved by "rough music" and think of the characters often. I think you perfectly describe the complexity of human mind and interactions with others. Thank you for all the precious moments you provided me!

piscesmoon · 13/06/2009 08:45

I loved 'Notes from an Exhibition' and am now reading 'A Sweet Obscurity', which is equally good. He is so good at drawing his characters.

IwoulddoDrWho · 13/06/2009 09:59

I have absolutely nothing of any interest to say except I loved Notes from an Exhibition. It really stayed with me. Thank you.

Cies · 13/06/2009 10:09

Another fan here. I've read Rough Music and Notes from an Exhibition and loved them both. Your others are on my extensive to read my list.

Randomly, the year I read Rough Music I was in my final year at university studying languages, and what should turn up in our Spanish mock finals translation paper but an extract from your book?! It was the passage where you describe the hot chocolate powder as something like "intense white powder" ?? Most of the class translated powder as "polvo", which is its first meaning, but can also mean shag! Much guffawing from the tutor.

Did you know you were helping to form the nations linguists?

foxinsocks · 13/06/2009 12:12

ok, have just gone and bought the new book . Very much looking forward to reading it.

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