Chris Thompson: Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale

Social worker turned playwright, Chris Thompson chooses Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale for our May Book of the Month. His plays include Of Kith and Kin, Albion and Carthage which won the Pearson Playwriting Award and was nominated for Best New Play and Most Promising New Playwright in the OFFIE awards.

I first read this book about five years ago and was struck by its humanity, tenderness and revelatory depiction of relationships. When artist, Rachel Kelly, dies in her studio in Penzance she leaves as her legacy not only an extraordinary collection of art work but also of emotional secrets that her family will live through long after her death. Rachel is an extraordinary protagonist, loved and resented in equal measure by the family she leaves behind. The prose has a clarity and intelligence that is so full of compassion and truth, it’s a book I have returned to on many occasions. 

Thank you Chris for choosing this title.  To see our previous Books of the Month, click here.