From the bestselling author of A Place Called Winter and Notes from an Exhibition comes Mother’s Boy, a superb historical novel of Cornwall, class, desire and two world wars.

Booker nominee Patrick Gale comes to Chelmsford to share insights into his latest book Mother’s Boy. It is the story of a man being shaped for a long, remarkable and revered life spent hiding in plain sight. But it is equally the story of the dauntless mother who will continue to shield him long after the dangers of war are past.

Venue: Chelmsford Library, County Hall, Market Road, Chelmsford, CM1 1QH

Tickets: £8 / £7 concessions (Students, Under 27s and Jobseekers)

Date and time: Wednesday 22nd June, 7.00pm

Box Office: Book online or via Mercury Theatre 01206 573948 (10am – 8pm Tuesday to Saturday)

Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale

Laura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura’s husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress, and gradually becomes aware that he is some kind of genius.

As an intensely private young man, Charles signs up for the navy with the new rank of coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to the colour and violence of war sees him blossom as he experiences not only the possibility of death, but the constant danger of a love that is as clandestine as his work.

Mother’s Boy is the story of a man who is among, yet apart from his fellows, in thrall to, yet at a distance from his own mother; a man being shaped for a long, remarkable and revered life spent hiding in plain sight. But it is equally the story of the dauntless mother who will continue to shield him long after the dangers of war are past.

Buy a copy of Mother’s Boy from bookshop.org

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 going to Oxford University.

He now lives on a farm near Land’s End. One of this country’s best loved novelists, his most recent works are A Perfectly Good Man, the Richard and Judy bestseller Notes From An Exhibition, the Costa shortlisted A Place Called Winter and Take Nothing With You.

His original BBC television drama, Man In An Orange Shirt, was shown to great acclaim in 2017 as part of the BBC’s Queer Britannia series, leading viewers around the world to discover his novels.

Photo of Patrick Gale © Jillian Edelstein