Notes from an Exhibition - Patrick Gale

Patrick Gale, I tend to think, writes in a mixture of styles - Joanna Trolloppe crossed with Anne Tyler. His books are Aga Sagas but with a touch more emphasis on family tensions and resolutions. In this book each chapter begins with a review of a picture produced by the central character - Rachel Kelly. Through each member of the family the history of this woman's life

emerges. As usial with Patrick Gale things are never quite what they seem. Rachel has a history of mental illness - but is it postnatal depression, or do the roots go deeper. She's married to a Quaker, and has children, each of whom has a story - a man desperate for a child with his wife, a gay son with an older partner, currently going through problems of jealosy, another son who died and a daughter who disappeared suffering from depression or something else. Here are the elements of an Anne Tyler novel but the resolution is typical Joanna Trolloppe. The loose ends are all fairly neatly tied. You do get a real feeling of the bipolar condition, and its treatment, and the reactions of others to it. This isn't great literature, and not particularly taxing - but it is pleasing and satisfying. Rating: 7/10