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The Whole Day Through: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Patrick Gale (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 270 ratings
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This bestselling bittersweet story of love and second chances takes place over the course of a single summer day . . . or does it?
 
The only child of eccentric academics who never married, Laura Lewis was an undergrad at Oxford when she met Ben Patterson. They shared an idyllic few months of passion, only to go their separate ways when Ben ended their relationship.
 
Two decades later, Laura is a self-employed accountant with a history of unfulfilling liaisons with married men, her adult life “mapped out in relationships not achievements.” She leaves Paris to return to England, determined to keep her osteoporosis-stricken mother from the indignities of an institution by caring for her at home. At a hospital in historic Winchester, Laura runs into her former love. A onetime HIV consultant, Ben has also come home to be a caregiver to his gay younger brother with mosaic Down syndrome. Ben is now married to Chloe, a former model he doesn’t love. In spite of the obstacles against them, Laura and Ben rekindle their affair.
 
The Whole Day Through takes place over twenty-four hours, while simultaneously spanning decades to tell Laura and Ben’s story. As the narrative threads move inexorably toward each other, past and present merge in a haunting collage of memory, mortality, missed chances, and the obligations and regrets of love. This novel from the bestselling British author of Notes from an Exhibition was a Sainsbury’s Book Club pick in the UK.
 
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  1. Print length
    183 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    May 31, 2016
  6. File size
    2453 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Wry, clever, faultlessly crafted . . . threaded with sadness . . . beautifully written, precisely nuanced and assured.” —The Guardian
 
“A bittersweet tale of what happens when you’re torn between duty and desire.” —She
 
“During the course of a summer’s day, memories are revisited, hearts, souls and consciences searched, and second chances fleetingly emerge. . . . [Gale’s] fluid telescoping of past and present adds to the mood of quiet poignancy.” —The Sunday Times
 
“Poignant and acutely observed.” —Daily Express
 

About the Author

Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight. He spent his infancy at Wandsworth Prison, which his father governed, then grew up in Winchester, before attending Oxford University. He now lives on a farm near Land’s End. One of the United Kingdom’s best-loved novelists, his recent works include A Perfectly Good Man, The Whole Day Through, and the Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller Notes from an Exhibition. His latest novel, A Place Called Winter, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize, the Walter Scott Prize, and the Independent Booksellers’ Novel of the Year award. To find out more about Patrick and his work, visit www.galewarning.org.
 
 

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01E6HYN9G
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (May 31, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 31, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2453 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 183 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 270 ratings

About the author

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Patrick Gale

Patrick Gale

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Patrick Gale is a keen cellist, gardener and artistic director of the North Cornwall Book Festival. He lives with his husband, the farmer and sculptor, Aidan Hicks (www.aidanhicks.com), on their farm at the far west of Cornwall. In addition to his latest, Mother’s Boy, which is published on March 1 2022, his seventeen novels include Take Nothing With You (2018), which was his fourth Sunday Times bestseller, Rough Music (2000), Notes From an Exhibition (2007), A Perfectly Good Man (2012) and A Place Called Winter (2015). In 2017 his two part drama Man in an Orange Shirt was screened by BBC2 as part of the Gay Britannia season. Continuing to be broadcast regularly around the world, this won the International Emmy for best miniseries and is now in development as a musical. He is currently working on a television adaptation of A Place Called Winter and a stage version of Take Nothing With You. Extracts from the BBC documentary All Families Have Secrets – the Narrative Art of Patrick Gale can be seen on his website www.galewarning.org.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
270 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Cathie Graham
5.0 out of 5 stars Patrick Gale is one of my favourite authors
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2013
Verified Purchase
All of Patrick Gales books draw the reader into the lives of the characters and the richness and colour of their often complex lives.
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Cloggie Downunder
4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2015
“… he remembered her sleeveless dress was simple and fairly short, the colour of a favourite pair of suede shoes….a brown somewhere between bread crust and butterscotch. It was either very well cut or she had an excellent figure; without her inside it would surely have looked like a sack. Her arms and legs were slightly tanned and her short hair hung across her face as she arched backwards. She was anonymous and elegant, and elegance in a busy general hospital was as unexpected as dancing”

The Whole Day Through is the fourteenth novel by British author, Patrick Gale. Ben Patterson and Laura Lewis have not seen each other for twenty years when they run into each other by chance in a Winchester hospital. Ben works in the hospital’s Genitourinary Medicine clinic while providing support for his Downs Syndrome younger brother, Bobby. His wife, Chloe, is living in London. Laura has recently returned to England from Paris to be the carer for her elderly mother, an eminent virologist who is mentally sharp but physically debilitated. “Ben had just begun to admit to himself that he was happier away from Chloe than with her…when he ran into Laura in the hospital”: he asks Laura out.

The narrative alternates between Ben and Laura, and extends over the length of a whole day, some weeks after their chance encounter. As each goes through the routine of their day, they examine the life they have now, the events that have brought them to this point, and remember the course of their earlier relationship, twenty years previous. By alternating the narrative, Gale presents two versions of events, two points of view which, naturally, do not always correspond.

Gale has a marvellous talent for slowly revealing his characters: their strengths and weaknesses, their good qualities and their faults and failings. Their ideas and opinions, their reasoning and rationale, their emotions are all expertly conveyed: “He had retained few close friends and they were all married, child-bearingly and happily so, apparently, and to voice doubts about a marriage to anyone in such a tight-knit group was to unstopper a baleful genie”.

As always, his descriptive prose is wonderfully evocative, capturing mood and ambience with consummate ease. “…she felt her unvoiced anger breaking out at last as a flush on her face and a tremor in her hands and jaw and a sense that everything around her – the visitors with their reused plastic bags, the too chirpy porters, the nurses sullen with exhaustion, the amateur art lining the corridor along which she strode – seemed an affront to her senses” and “At that time of year she enjoyed looking up from her magnificent seat to explore the farther reaches of the vaulting and tracery with her eyes. In the winter months there was a different pleasure to be had from the vast darkness of the church around them and the sense of the quire as a pool of light in a forest of nocturnal stone” are just two examples.

Fans of Gale’s earlier work will not be disappointed in this bittersweet love story. Beautifully written.
4.5 stars
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Laraine
3.0 out of 5 stars a sweet love story between two people who were serious in ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2015
This is the first book I've read by Patrick Gale. His books are well known in the UK and several have been Richard and Judy Book Club selections, but I don't see them very often here in Canada. My library had this book and I jumped at the chance to read it. I found the book quite enjoyable for the most part...a sweet love story between two people who were serious in Uni and then suddenly went in different directions in life. Laura, who has been working and living in Paris, comes home to help look after her Mum, a brilliant retired professor with osteoporosis. She accidently bumps into Ben, her former beau, who is now a Dr. in the local HIV/AIDS clinic, who has temporarily walked away from his wife, who he has realized he doesn't love, to come home to look after his brother Bobby, a man with Down's Syndrome. Laura and Ben meet and rekindle the passion and romance of their Uni days. I found the ending of the book to be disappointing, but other than that, I'd like to read another of Gale's books.
4 people found this helpful
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escoocoo
4.0 out of 5 stars 🤫QUIETLY DELIGHTFUL
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2017
A surprisingly delightful story with a tasty array of eccentric and mesmerizing characters. I think I fell in love with (almost) just about all of them. A great shock at the end, at least for me, as I didn’t see it coming: shocking and sad but also, somehow, oddly satisfying.

Mr. Gale writes with great compassion and insight into the hearts and souls of a diverse group of characters: gay, straight, young, old, men, women, etc. How does he do that? I don’t know but it certainly made (for me) a very enjoyable and satisfying reading experience!

I’m adding this one to my list of favorites, and Mr. Gale to the Short List of my favorite authors.
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Ken Ashwell
3.0 out of 5 stars Not worth paying
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2013
Well written, but not for me, storyline weak but not as bad The Facts of Life same author, one star.
One person found this helpful
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mummazappa
4.0 out of 5 stars Patrick Gale is an incredible writer
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2010
From the back cover: When Laura Lewis surrenders her life of stylish independence in Paris to care for her mother in Winchester, romance seems a necessary casualty. Then she runs into Ben, the love of her student days - and, as she belatedly admits, her emotional yardstick for every man since. But are they brave enough to grasp this second chance at happiness, or will they be defeated by the deep-seated need to do what they think is right? Revolving around the events of a single summer's day, The Whole Day Through is a bittersweet love story, shot through with an understanding of mortality, memory and the difficulty of being good. It is a candid tale about the tests of love: the failings, the triumphs - and the regrets.

Patrick Gale is an incredible writer, he really has the ability to use a few carefully selected words to create strong visual scenes packed with intense emotion. It seems to me that he has the ability to take the everyday, the ordinary and usual parts of life and shine a light on them so that we can see how beautiful, precious and heartbreaking they are. The only thing that stops me from giving this 5 stars is the way my rating scale works. My scale is really based on how much I enjoyed a book, rather than things like its relative literary merit (for example). And I have to say that this isn't really my kind of story. While I do love character driven novels I do enjoy just a little bit more plot than this story has. But it hasn't put me off his writing, and I look forward to reading more of his work. I have had Notes From An Exhibition recommended to me, so I'll be reading that soon.
5 people found this helpful
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M. Michael
4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and sad
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2017
A quick but enjoyable read. Telling the story of a relationship within the framework of a day. Fascinating and fragile.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Chirpy
5.0 out of 5 stars Gale hits the mark once again.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2015
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As always, Patrick Gale does not disappoint. An excellent read, brim full with characters the reader feels they know, and a storyline which totally engages.
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H. Mittenzwei
5.0 out of 5 stars Ich bin sehr zufrieden
Reviewed in Germany on January 9, 2010
Verified Purchase
Das BUch ist in einem sehr guten Zustand und wurde mir sehr schnell zugeschickt. Ich bin sehr zufrieden.
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L. Moghtader
4.0 out of 5 stars Un Bon Moment
Reviewed in France on August 10, 2009
Verified Purchase
J'ai passé un très bon moment à lire ce livre malgré un peu de difficultés à m'y retrouver dans le temps (allers-retours passé/présent). Le style est simple, facile à lire; l'histoire est plein d'émotions et de frustrations. Ce n'est pas un roman inoubliable mais attachant.
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SusannahB
4.0 out of 5 stars The Whole Day Through
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2016
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Laura Lewis, a self-employed accountant in her forties with several unsuccessful love affairs behind her, leaves her Paris apartment and arrives in the city of Winchester to take care of her elderly mother, the formidably intellectual Professor Jellicoe, a retired virologist, who has become incapacitated due to osteoporosis. After dropping her mother off at the local hospital for a clinic appointment, Laura bumps into Ben, an old flame from her Oxford undergraduate days, who is a doctor specialising in sexually transmitted diseases and who has returned home to Winchester to care for his brother, Bobby, who has Mosaic Down's Syndrome. Set mainly over the course of a single summer's day, but also moving backwards and forwards in time, this deftly-crafted story shows how Ben ended his relationship with Laura whilst they were at Oxford, and how he began dating and then married the beautiful, but rather shallow Chloe; we read of how Ben's and Chloe's relationship is now experiencing significant difficulties, and of how Ben uses his brother's condition to take time out from his ailing marriage; we read of Laura's and Ben's pleasure at meeting up again after twenty years and of their renewed interest and reawakened love for one another, and we read of whether they will take the opportunity of this second chance of happiness to form a lasting relationship with one another…

As always with Patrick Gale, this is a beautifully written novel and one that is a confidently executed and perceptively observed story of relationships, of missed opportunities, and of the obligations and rewards of family life. I particularly enjoyed the author's unsentimental portrayal of the affinity between Laura and her mother (he acknowledges his debt to his own mother and sister for allowing him to draw inspiration from their relationship for this book), and I also found Mr Gale's exquisite descriptions of the details of Laura's daily life very rewarding to read (although I have to admit that being rather squeamish I could have easily managed without the details of Ben's work with patients who'd contracted sexually transmitted diseases). In addition, I very much enjoyed the descriptions of the city of Winchester (which I know well) and despite finding parts of the story a little less than convincing and feeling that the story ended too suddenly (I can't explain further without revealing spoilers), I really enjoyed this novel and have returned it straight away to one of my bookcases to experience again in the future. I can also recommend the following books by the same author:  'A Perfectly Good Man' ; 'Notes From An Exhibition' ; 'Friendly Fire' ; 'Ease'  and  'Kansas in August' .

4 Stars.
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Pauline Vernon
3.0 out of 5 stars Gale fails to connect
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2014
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An avid Patrick Gale fan, I failed to connect with this book at all. Whilst I love Patrick Gale's 'observational' style, I found this one boring and turgid. Set over the course of one day it should have flown by but instead the years recollected through memory felt like years of reading time. Sadly, it was predictable, none of the characters particularly likeable, and at the end I wondered why I had bothered. Hope this is his 'blip' in his writing career as his other books are well worthy of reading.
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