- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Fourth Estate; illustrated edition edition (4 April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007151004
- ISBN-13: 978-0007151004
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 963,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
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Review
Praise for Rough Music: 'What is delightful about Gale's fiction is that it so warmly and convincingly illuminates ordinary lives and interests. His staples are difficult loves, botched careers, tangled family histories -- mainstream stuff, with the offbeat as an extra' Daily Telegraph 'Exerts the unmistakable force of a novelist in the process of discovering a new, strong voice. With this alarming and technically very skilful romance, he is decidedly a man to watch' Mail on Sunday 'Rough Music ! is an astute, sensitive and at times tragically uncomfortable meditation on sex, lies and family!. a fabulously unnerving book! a hugely compelling writer.' Independent on Sunday 'Rough Music, like its predecessors, belongs to a broad canon of works by English rural moralists. Think Austen, Hardy or Murdoch ! His plots -- seemingly effortless, but closely structured -- resemble Iris Murdoch's ! Gripping, elegant and wise, it is Gale's best book to date, and should not be missed.' The Weekend Review, Independent
Tina Jackson, Metro
'Gale’s finely tuned rites of passage novel depicts a learning curve of betrayal and shame.’
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awake My Soul,
By A Customer
This review is from: Friendly Fire: Some Things You Can't Learn at School (Paperback)
It's not surprising that Gale, brought up in prisons and public schools, should return from time to time to tales of institutional life. What is surprising is the freshness of perspective he manages to find in each reworking of a familiar milieu. Themes recur as well as places: the outsider as the reference point for sanity (and often morality) and the use of a central character who is in some way freakish: Sophie, our protagonist here, has a bizarrely parent-less and yet multi-parented life and is reminiscent of Dido from A Sweet Obscurity in that though a child, she has a certain grave maturity which affects the lives of the adults around her. These outsiders' stories may or may not carry some metaphorical representation of Gale's experiences as a gay man but what is fascinating is his ability to find the dystopic in the 'normal' and set it against the surer groundings which the freaks have managed to dredge out of their less-than-fortunate circumstances. I've just read Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' and there are interesting comparisons: Ishiguro's narrative is also set in a boarding school, also focuses on the interplay between apparently unusual children and the adult world around them. But Gale's story is the subtler of the two in that he does the whole job with character, rather than needing to invent a sinister parallel reality in order to provide the metaphorical underpinnings for outsider-hood. I noted in a previous review that Gale is often compared to Joanna Trollope and Iris Murdoch. In Friendly Fire, we get a good taste of Dickens too: When Dr Harestock announces the morning hymn he 'never treated the first line as a title but read until the first full stop.' In Great Expectations, Mr. Wopsle's announcements of the psalm always involve his 'giving the whole first verse.' Dickensian too are the wonderful illustrations by Aidan Hicks: not only are they lovely in their own right, but they can also be used by the eagle-eyed as a way of foretelling the action as each chapter begins. You get a lot with Gale: he's clearly read everything good in English Literature and knows how to play the magpie with it. But he is never less than original even in this, his thirteenth novel. I can't think of an intelligent person I know who could fail to enjoy it and to appreciate its subtle, lingering charm.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An author who gets it right every time. Fantastic!,
By
This review is from: Friendly Fire: Some Things You Can't Learn at School (Paperback)
I'll be brief: I've been reading Gale's work since Little Bits of Baby (still in my Top Ten along with his Facts of Life). He has completely mastered the ability to portray the complexities of human nature in a most accessible way - the landscapes of his characters' emotions and motivations are laid out before us with considerable dexterity. Similarly the various UK locations of his novels are expertly depicted. I would suggest that he has yet to produce a poor novel - and that is why I buy them on day of publication and read them in very few sittings. How many authors can create the same sense of expectation and maintain the mix of high standards and originality? In Friendly Fire he brings to life those strains and fears of adolescence - via youths of widely differing backgrounds and set in juxtaposed locations of public school, children's home and bourgeois suburbia. I for one felt transported back to my early to mid teens. And, finally, if you are heading for a beach this (like his others) will hit the spot. Not because it's simplistic literature - it just reads so well.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well-constructed and sympathetic novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: Friendly Fire: Some Things You Can't Learn at School (Paperback)
Lots of interesting detail about Winchester College. Hard to believe that Sophie would have been so unrebellious, that punk could have so little impact on these kids, that a low-class girl like Sophie could be so at ease with all the members of the upper classes that she comes into contact with.The characters, Charlie, Lucas and Mr Compton are drawn much more convincingly than the straight ones - Sophie, Wilf and Margaret. Overall an enjoyable read but not the definitive seventies school novel.
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