The Cat Sanctuary
by Patrick Gale
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Bestselling British author Patrick Gale casts an empathetic and ferocious eye on the domestic wounds inflicted by families and lovers in this dark comedy. One minute Deborah Curtis's husband, Julian, is alive, a handsome figure leaving their rented house in an African principality, kissing his wife goodbye in the early morning sunshine. The next moment he's dead, the ground shaking in the aftermath of a deafening explosion. Months later, Deborah is still recovering from the assassination of show more her spouse and the collateral damage to her own body and soul. Bestselling author Judith Lamb is living with her partner of eight years in an isolated farmhouse on the Cornish moors, struggling with her latest novel. Her American lover, the tall, statuesque Joanna Verdura, is currently on assignment in Seneca. After reading about a diplomat killed by a car bomb meant for someone else, Joanna feels a strong compulsion to visit the dead man's widow. After all, Deborah is Judith's younger sister. Although she has been estranged from Judith for years, Deborah doesn't resist when Joanna whisks her off to Cornwall to grieve in peace, far from the political spotlight. But Joanna has unleashed a demon: the sisters' buried past. As old unresolved wounds bleed into the present, a history of abuse comes to light. Forced to confront painful memories, the women's secrets and lies collide in a shattering, unbearably moving climax in a cat sanctuary. From the bestselling author of Notes from an Exhibition, told in the very different voices of its three female characters, The Cat Sanctuary is an ultimately redemptive tale about family and forgiveness and the love and steadfast devotion needed to find grace. show lessTags
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It was always going to happen one day - a Patrick Gale novel I didn't enjoy. This had the familiar West Country/gay character axis, but didn't grip me the way all his others have. There seemed to be too little drama and too much concentration on shopping or what everyone orders in a restaurant. All the characters have some kind of secret or reach some kind of understanding with themselves through events, but it was as though these were hastily dealt with in a paragraph or so and then shut away in a cupboard to make way for some random musing about the landscape or whatever. Disappointing.
An accidental violent death of Deborah's husband brings her to stay with Judith, her sister, and Judith's partner Joanna. With unresolved family tensions, resentments and secrets, it's a tricky period. OK, but not my favourite Gale.
The more of Patrick Gale I read, the less engaging I find the books. I guess I've probably read all the decent ones already... but I'll probably keep going all the same.
Weer een geweldig boek van Gale, soms wat veel toevalligheden maar verder mooi geschreven, psychologische portretten. Origineel met onverwachte plotwendingen maar vooral bijzonder psychologisch inzicht.
Dec 2, 2009Dutch
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Good LGBT fiction for LGBT folk and friends
537 works; 54 members
Author Information
31+ Works 4,430 Members
Patrick Gale was born in 1962 on the Isle of Wight. He is a British novelist He was educated at The Pilgrims' School, the choir school for both Winchester Cathedral and Winchester College, then at Winchester College itself and at New College, University of Oxford. Following university he had a range of jobs while he sang for the London show more Philharmonic Choir and wrote his first novel, The Aerodynamics of Pork while working as a waiter in an all-night restaurant. His works include: Ease, Kansas in August, Little Bits of Baby and A Place Called Winter. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1990
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 129
- Popularity
- 252,430
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.72)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 5
