I've never read any Patrick Gale novels before, but after reading this, I certainly will now! 'The Whole Day Through'is just excellent! It is filled with longing.....for lost loves, lost lives, lost youth, and yearning........for what was, what could be, and what is. Laura and Ben were young lovers, though socially incompatible. Laura's parents were academics, and she has had an unorthodox upbringing - her parents being naturists, and estranged from family, as well as being older parents. Ben, on the other hand comes from a happy home, he has a brother with a mosaic form of Downs Syndrome, of whom Ben is very protective. Their affair is passionate, but eventually fizzles out. Laura moves on to Paris, where she has a succession of unsatisfactory affairs, and Ben becomes a Doctor specialising in HIV. He goes on to marry Chloe, who was a very popular, pretty and rich girl at University, and not someone that Laura could ever relate to. Years later, laura returns to England to care for her now widowed and disabled elderly mother, and bumps into Ben. Some passions never die - they are merely left simmering until a chance encounter awakens them, and so it is for Ben and Laura. However, they are older now, they each have responsibilities, and ties.
This book just aches with longing, and the dilemma which faces Ben and Laura is very real, and utterly believable. I loved it, devoured it, and will read it again. Highly recommended.
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