Gale, Patrick

(British, 1962– )

Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight and educated at Winchester and Oxford. He is a prolific writer, having written eight novels since 1986, including The Cat's Sanctuary (1990) about two warring sisters, set in Cornwall. The Facts of Life (1995) owes something to family saga, telling the stories of Edward Pepper, Holocaust refugee, and his gay grandson who contracts AIDS. Yet the novel is not gloomy; Gale has a lightness of touch and inveterate optimism. In Tree Surgery for Beginners (1998), inspired by Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, the same is true. The hero, Lawrence Frost, is investigated for the murder of his wife, then takes a comic but therapeutic journey to northern California.

Armistead Maupin, Alan Hollinghurst, Edmund White  SA