The final book to be featured this season on the Sara Cox Radio 2 Book Club is Love Lane by Patrick Gale—a searing portrayal of escape and entrapment, and a powerful exploration of what home and family can really be.
The book was released on 26 March and Patrick’s interview with Sara is on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 7 April.
Read an exclusive extract.
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Love Lane
1950s Northern England. Three generations of men, two of women.
When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane is brutally obliged to sell up and sail home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self examination for the family he abandoned, and for whom he has never been more than a distant myth.
His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is riven with doubt and ambushed by a long-buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry’s effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is. Can Harry stay and make a new life before it’s too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much?
About the author
Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight. He spent his infancy at Wandsworth Prison, which his father governed, then grew up in Winchester before going to Oxford University. He now lives on a farm near Land’s End. One of this country’s best-loved novelists, his most recent works are A Perfectly Good Man, the Richard and Judy bestseller Notes From An Exhibition, the Costa shortlisted A Place Called Winter and Mother’s Boy. His original BBC television drama, Man In An Orange Shirt, was shown to great acclaim in 2017 as part of the BBC’s Queer Britannia series, leading viewers around the world to discover his novels.
A word from Patrick
“I’m blown away to have Love Lane picked for the Radio 2 Book Club. So many of my readers are keen members of library-based book clubs, and I know a lot of those clubs make a point of reading and discussing the Radio 2 choices. It’s also lovely because my novel, A Place Called Winter, which, while not strictly a prequel, is adjacent to this one, was picked by Radio 2 back in the Simon Mayo era. Living at the back of beyond as I do, I’m a keen user of the BorrowBox app to download audiobooks through our local library to listen to on my walks and long drives, so I’ve every hope that my recording of Love Lane will soon be made available that way, alongside the eBook version, for all those busy readers who have their hands too full to turn pages!”
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