A Place Called Winter

Notes From An Exhibition author Patrick Gale’s first historical novel opens rather unnervingly with his protagonist Harry Cane being strapped into a bath.

A Place Called Winter

Patrick Gale

Tinder Press, €17.99; ebook, €11.99

Review: Kate Whiting

He’s in a Canadian asylum, being treated for mental illness, and his story only starts to emerge when he’s moved to a progressive, therapeutic community, where psychiatrist Gideon encourages him to talk through the trauma he has suffered.

Harry is a privileged orphan from Edwardian London with a brother, Jack and a wife and daughter, who was forced to flee the country by his brother-in-law, after rumours of his intimate liaisons with another man. Gentleman Harry joins the farmers who are taming the Canadian prairies and meets Paul, the love of his life. Throughout the book, we return to Harry in the community, until we learn the dreadful truth of how he came to be there. Epic in scale and subject, Gale effortlessly evokes the grand wild landscapes and Harry’s inner turmoil - and it’s all the more compelling because it’s based on the true story of Gale’s great-grandfather.