The Aerodynamics of Pork

A love story of a very young gay couple and a love story of a still young lesbian one, only very indirectly intermingled. The author managed the difficult feat of writing optimistically about romantic relationships without becoming the least bit maudlin.

I'm not really sure why this is one book instead of two; the intersections between Mo Faithe's story and Seth & Netia's stories weren't really used -- the two stories didn't intertwine or illuminate each other. They're both interesting stories, but I got a little mental whiplash switching back and forth.

I'm VASTLY amused by the music festival in Seth's story, given that I know Gale through his chairmanship of the St Endellion music festival. In north Cornwall. ::cackles::

This is one of those books where I stare at it, thinking, what, exactly, makes this so English? Americanize the punctuation and I *swear* I would still know the author is an Englishman; it's not the setting, either, because Ian McEwan does not give them same sense.

One of the strands of the story follows a family, sans its father, on their usual summer stay in the country, and the other a policewoman in London investigating a series of crimes related to astrology and predictions of the future. The thing in common isn't obvious for a long time, and the overall impression I had was one of confusion.

Patrick Gale tells two stories in side by side and which meet briefly towards the conclusion. Mo, a WPC getting over the loss of the her lover Maggie, finds herself engaged in investigating a series of burglaries on newspaper astrologers. Seth, fifteen years old, a violin prodigy, and older his sister Venetia are about to set off for the annual family holiday and festival in Cornwall. It will be a summer of discovery for the two siblings as well as for Mo.

Mo is good at her job, but suffers for being a woman (and a dyke) in an ostensibly male domain, but she may be successful in more than just the case she is working on.

Seth is a modest and unaffected young man, and while he has indulged in the occasional liaison with other boys at his show more private school, he has not found love. That is until he meets Roly while in Cornwall. Roly, in his early twenties, a sculptor, is handsome and dashing, and in the eyes of most rather arrogant, but Seth finds something else under the outer display, that is if he can pluck up the courage to make his interest clear.

Venetia displays what could be signs of pregnancy, although claims that cannot be possible. She is looking forward to meeting the writer she admires, a meeting that goes rather better than expected.

With a support of several other strong characters, The Aerodynamics of Pork provides a very entertaining read, often very funny, at times touching; this the first of Patrick Gale's novels shows much of the promise to come.

(my second reading of the book, first in 2006) show less