Ah, this was wonderful, I didn’t want it to end, but when it did I was so glad with how it ended. Although I don’t think I’ve read a book of Patrick Gale’s that I haven’t liked this is certainly the only one that I felt could compete with the first one I read: Notes from an Exhibition. It has the same kind of sweeping through a life story vibe to it. At the beginning of the book we meet Harry in some kind of early twentieth century lunatic asylum kind of place, not where you’d want to be. And then we go back to his childhood and work forward again. Often I hate this kind of device but here it is used very well. Each time we revisit the Harry we met at the beginning of the book we have a bit more idea how he came to be there and the pieces of the puzzle slowly fall into place. A fabulous read.