Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale

review by Maryom

Eustace has reached the sort of age where he feels there's little left in life to surprise him. Now in his fifties, he's survived AIDS, and settled to an uneventful single life shared with his dog, Joyce, and close friend, Naomi.Then his comfortable world is rocked. First by falling in love again, rather ridiculously with a man he hasn't even met. Then by fearing he might die.
Through long solitary hours of treatment in hospital, he listens to a mix-tape of cello music prepared by Naomi, and reflects on his life, the anxiety and fumbling sexual misadventures of his teen years, and the escape from his dull, repressive home life discovered through music, and his charismatic cello-teacher Carla.


In many ways you could claim this is much like any other coming of age story -  discovering music, sex, and the fallibility of parents, making friends who will last a lifetime, and finding love - but at the same time the story-telling and Eustace himself make it unique.
Gale's writing is engrossing, intelligent, compelling, warm and welcoming like wrapping oneself in a snugly blanket. As I read, I wanted to both hold every moment, slow right down and immerse myself in each unfolding scene, and dash through to find out how gauche, troubled teenage Eustace became the contented, sophisticated mid-life man we met at the beginning of the story. As a boy, he's so naive and vulnerable that it's impossible to not care about him, and to dread that his innocence will be harshly taken away, with suffering to come before he achieves happiness.

As events unfold, you begin to see how cleverly put together the story is. Told from Eustace's perspective, it only hints at events outside his immediate knowledge and understanding, but there's enough for the reader to put the clues together, and realise the motivations of the other players in his life.

A tiny part of me was worried when I realised music played a huge part in this book - despite my mother's attempts to turn me into a pianist, I'm not musically inclined, and frequently books referencing it too much can leave me cold. Fortunately, I found that didn't matter here. Gale captures Eustace's enthusiasm so well that I could understand it without having to had shared it. Maybe if you know and love the pieces Eustace plays, you'll have an extra attachment to the book, but I loved it anyway, and didn't feel excluded.

I'm not sure I've really caught how much I loved this book, so to end on here's a little aside (no plot spoilers) to show how well Gale immerses the reader in a moment and brings it to life.  I found myself one day recently wondering about a new recipe I'd heard of for cooking pasta sauce, and after pondering over cook books and websites, I realised - it was here! A simple tomato sauce cooked by one of Carla's friends, lovingly described by the author, that's stayed in my mind.

Ostensibly an adult read (and that's how I've labelled it), but see if you can encourage your teens to read it too. It make help them make sense of the turmoil of adolescence.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher -  Tinder Press
Genre - Adult fiction, coming of age, LGBT