Patrick Gale Sophie Ratcliffe

Novelist Patrick Gale talks about his latest work, Love Lane, an exploration of home and family, which sees him return to the story of Harry Cane, the central character in his bestselling book A Place Called Winter.

Cane, a Canadian wheat farmer, is forced to sell up and set sail for home to an England transformed by two world wars. His return triggers an unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned. His daughter is full of anger but feels bound to take him in. Can Harry make a new life before it’s too late. 

Gale’s novels include A Perfectly Good Man, Notes from an Exhibition and Mother’s Boy. His BBC television drama, Man in an Orange Shirt, was shown to great acclaim as part of the BBC’s Queer Britannia series and won the International Emmy for best miniseries. Gale is a cellist, gardener and patron of North Cornwall Book Festival, Penzance LitFest and the Charles Causley Trust. Here he talks to writer and literary critic Sophie Ratcliffe, author of The Lost Properties of Love.