by Elaine Arthur

Created on: January 29, 2010

Patrick Gale's 2000 novel Rough Music is a story about memory.  Our lives are made up of memories, but what we do with them is what makes up the drama of being human.

Will Pagett, the protagonist in this story, has just turned 40.  He has spent a quiet, humble life thus far, and lived in relative contentment.  He has come to terms with what he considers an average childhood for one born in England in the early 1960s.  He has only minimal emotional scarring from years spent in boarding schools.  He is steadily building a successful business, and has good friends he can rely on.  His parents are aging and his mother shows increasing signs of early-onset Alzheimer's.  We quickly come to see Will as one who sublimates his own needs and desires in order to maintain peaceful relationships with those he cares about.

Enter Poppy, Will's sister, who presents Will with the gift of a rented cottage by the sea.  Will, as we learn early in the story, is gay, yet less than happy with the romantic side of his life.  He is involved with someone as the story opens, but for reasons that become clear later on, cannot be open about this relationship, even with those who are closest to him.  Lacking a partner, Will elects to invite his parents to accompany him on the summer holiday.

This will not be Will's first vacation at Cornwall.  As a child, he accompanied his parents, Frances and John, to a rented cottage one summer, where the family enjoyed unpretentious diversions such as swimming, taking meals in the local shops, and exploring the local museums and churches.  Gale offers us alternating chapters, traveling back and forth through time, and demonstrating how two people can remember the same incident in the same place in such distinct ways.

Patrick Gale does a superb job of revealing small bits of information as the pages turn, allowing the reader to absorb each minute twist of the story, much like completing a jigsaw puzzle.

On both ends of the timeline, there are unresolved sexual tensions, impulsive explorations, emotional betrayals, and angry accusations.  What becomes clear by the end of the book is the power of memory to bring us to decisions:  Will we allow history to repeat itself?  Can we learn from the hard lessons of our past?  

Rough Music is a story about memory, family and love.  It is a story about children, and their inner wisdom and insight that loving adults too easily miss.  It is a haunting tale of second chances and the ability to be honest with ourselves and those we cherish.

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