Love Lane by Patrick Gale review – a homecoming tale with echoes of Brokeback Mountain

This kindly and companionable story of a man returning to 50s England after living in Canada offers a colourful evocation of the times Towards the end of Love Lane, elderly protagonist Harry Cane becomes a figure of twinkly-eyed mischief. Gossiping with his granddaughter Pip, he advises her that “people without secrets … are like people with very tidy houses: usually not worth knowing”. Dangerously buried secrets are very much the order of the day in Patrick Gale’s 18th novel. We start as we ...

By Michael Donkor