Books : The Cat Sanctuary

Rating: - One of Gale's better books
I enjoyed this book although the bit where the cats are involved (not going to spoil it for you) was very upsetting and the attitude of the women who just stood made me was equally upsetting. However, going back to the main plotline - this is an interesting book, though Deborah's husband's death I found slightly implausible. The love between Judith and Joanna was touching and the way that the three women become closer friends as they learn more about their pasts is delicately written and warming. However as with all Gale's books I found it hard to believe in the characters, or particularly care about them, and Gale's constant use of infidelity in all his novels is rather depressing. Can we please have a book from him in which people are faithful and are NICE to each other?

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Rating: - Slowly gains a grip
As with Patrick Gale's other books, I find too many unwieldy and awkward sentences - I do wish he'd get rid of all those oddly-placed and irritating "howevers". However, the characters and situations are fascinating, and the reader gradually warms to the initially drippy but eventually courageous Deborah, Judith's bereaved sister. The relationship between the sisters is uneasy, and gradually we discover that both have reasons to feel guilt and shame about their childhood. The minor characters are well-drawn, especially eccentric Esther of the eponymous cat sanctuary. Ultimately an engrossing book which draws you into difficult relationships, and, like all Gale's novels, has a strong sense of place and community. As with ROUGH MUSIC, I find that Gale is more successful at portraying female relationships than he is at male ones - as all the main characters are female here, the novel shows his strengths.

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Rating: - A book to get your claws into
Patrick Gale is a master storyteller and The Cat Sanctuary a powerful and moving book shot through with humour and humility. Essentially it is the story of two sisters, Deborah and Julia separated for years by geography, personality and sexuality. Tragic circumstances throw them back together when Deborah's diplomat husband is accidentally assassinated and as the grief begins to subside skeletons start falling out of cupboards. In a cottage in Cornwall they and Joanna, Julia's lover, are forced to confront their pasts as well as the awkwardness of their present. This is a beautiful yet truthful study of the pain unwittingly inflicted by friends, lovers and family. This book is supremely well-observed. The backdrop of the Cornish countryside in all its moods is a metaphor for the stormy and capricious nature of relationships - you can almost taste the mist and it's a beautiful place to lose yourself for an hour or two.

As in his other novels there's a supporting cast of eccentric and bizarre characters all of whom are sympathetically and truthfully drawn. Patrick Gale has the ability to make the extraordinary seem usual and the usual extraordinary. His characters live on in the mind well after the final page is turned.