The title of Patrick Gale’s latest lyrical novel alludes both to its central theme of the hidden, winding paths of love and also to the street by Wakefield prison where two characters, Mike and Pip, live. They are fictional renderings of the author’s grandparents – the names and address are real.
In Love Lane, just as he did in his 2015 novel A Place Called Winter, Gale draws on his own history to frame a question about a family secret and then uses fiction to create a rendering of a possible truth. He develops the story of Harry Cane, who, in the earlier novel, we discovered was a gay man, blackmailed out of a privileged life in England and banished to the Canadian Prairies at the start of the 20th century. Now Gale explores why, after the second world war, Harry sold his farm for less than it was worth, returned to his family in Liverpool and then, a few weeks later, was sent back to Canada.
The discovery of Harry’s illicit affair with his brother-in-law threatens to destroy the charade of his life
We learn that in Canada Harry is a respected member of the community, living on the land alone, except for secret nightly visits from his illicit long-term lover, his brother-in-law and neighbour, Paul. This affair is essential to Harry, but its inevitable discovery threatens to destroy the charade of his life. So he retreats back across the Atlantic to his long-lost daughter Betty.
Her story is interleaved with Harry’s, and Gale further expands the narrative to encompass sections on Betty’s prison governor husband Terry and her naive daughter Pip, married to Mike. As we dip into these tales we glimpse the intriguing lives of other minor characters, such as two prisoners sentenced to death, despite being probably innocent; the ‘glamorous and naughty’ aunts who brought Betty up; and two tailors, who ‘shelter their relationship’ in their business – their secret alluded to by matching signet rings.
There are vividly conjured settings, especially of postwar Liverpool, with its ‘pillars of chimney smoke’ and ‘unholy mess of the emerging Catholic cathedral’; and of rationing and old-fashioned recipes, including Betty’s suggestion that Pip feed her baby brains: ‘It has just the consistency of scrambled eggs, so most babies love it, and of course they’re too young to be silly about what it is!’
While Harry’s tale is the novel’s linchpin, Gale places him among a host of such colourful characters that his journey is not always the most emotionally compelling. I enjoyed taking this very scenic route, but perhaps I did get a little lost in the lanes.
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