This is a book by Patrick Gale. Need I say more? This is a wonderful portrayal of a young boy, a slightly odd boy who doesn't quite fit in, but who discovers joy through learning the cello. It's the portrait of this same boy as an older man undergoing urgent treatment, who has newly fallen in love again. As always with Gale, it's a compelling story, sympathetically and beautifully told. ( )

Take Nothing with You
The opening chapters of Tale Nothing with You set me on a course to expect an entirely different novel than what the book turned out to be.
The opening begins telling about a man, Eustace, who has kept up contact with another man, a soldier, over social media. Eustace finds himself greatly enjoying the cyberchats with the other man, Theo, who is an officer in the Marines deployed to the Afghan combat zone.
The two have begun their conversations with no intention in ever actually meeting or seeing each other. As they continue their contacts, they find that they are becoming romantically interested in each other.
The soldier is about to come home on a short leave-of-absence and the two men decide to meet-up in person at Eustace's home during his short leave.
At the same time, Eustace receives a diagnosis of cancer that severely restricts his throat and requires immediate surgery. The operation and recuperation will take place just as Theo is about to come to Eustace’s home while on his two-week leave. The timeline clearly cannot work. And then….

The author suddenly, abruptly, and without any transitions skips backward in time to the real and more significant plot of the book.
In this storyline, Eustace is 14, growing up in a very unhappy family with limited financial resources, little communication, and even more limited affection for one another. At 14, Eustace discovers an incredible love for and talent for music, specifically the cello.
Much of the plot deals with the details of his education in learning the instrument, but, at the same time, it reveals his adolescent struggle to confront and accept being gay.
Interestingly, the “gay” aspects of the plot generally occur subtlety and never as the most important features in the storyline. The book is really about developing a deep love for music while the youthful protagonist discovers along the way that he likes other boys.
Just like the romance with the soldier in the opening storyline, in this part of the storyline about Eustace’s early sexual experiences, the experiences occur without forethought or intentionality. Eustace and his long-time friend Vernon have a sexual experience together. Since most adolescent boys first experience sex with another boy, this is not necessarily a hallmark of Eustace’s sexuality, but as he repeats similar experiences, he does have to confront his sexual orientation.
Excellent writing throughout the novel make it a pleasure to read. One particularly strong segment of character development relating to the character Vernon. Eustace’s father says, “he chose not to be interested’ (in how people perceived his behaviors). Vernon amused Eustace’s father, who said, “He was like a late middle-aged man (who) ‘unexpectedly landed in a small boy’s body and making no allowances for the change in habitat’.”
Very far into the book, the author includes a solitary chapter that recalls the book’s opening and reminds readers of those circumstances which began the book and which will end it. There is no transition into this chapter a or away from it, and again none to those chapters at the end of the book. This lack of transition makes for a jarring and confusing set of circumstances. Other than that, however, I liked the book. I respected that it did not make sexuality the chief feature of the plot, subsuming it in order to make the sexuality feel like “just one of those things” rather than the driving and most prominent part of life.
Adolescents must face the advent of sexuality on their way into adulthood whether they are straight or gay. Since Take Nothing with You dwells so little upon it, it is just a good book, not simply a good gay book. ( )

A kind, compassionate coming-of-age novel: no rose-tinted glasses, no overdramatisation; three-dimensional characters, none of them faultless, none of them willingly wicked. Probably one of the best Patrick Gale books I've read so far. ( )

Een mooi coming of age boek over een jongen die opgroeit in een verzorgingstehuis (gerund door zijn ouders). Hij ontdekt zijn homoseksualiteit terwijl zijn moeder een relatie aangaat met zijn cello-lerares. Vooral de stukken over muziek en spelen in een kamerorkest zijn erg mooi om te lezen. ( )

A coming of age story set in Weston-super-Mare. I found this enthralling despite the many pages devoted to the study of the cello. The chapters set in the present day were heavily outweighed by the bulk of the story of Eustace's teenage years, with passing references to the middle section of his life. The author managed to make both his parents sympathetic characters (the mother perhaps less so!) despite the ways in which they failed Eustace.

It was hard to keep in mind that this is a novel and not an autobiography. ( )