Gale’s 16 th novel (and his first foray into historical fiction) takes the diaries and letters of his own great grandmother – wife to the real life Harry Cane – and attempts to make sense of his great grandfather’s sudden and inexplicable journey into the wilderness of the Canadian Prairies.

We open our exploration of this year’s theme – Migration and the Migrant – with an examination of the ways in which a culture can both liberate and constrain the individual. The inequities in Canadian society are every bit as bad as those in Australia, in terms of the bitter legacy of colonisation.”- Patrick Gale

Is civilisation just about populating an area or is it more complicated? The Cree, the Native tribe Harry encounters, had an old, complicated civilisation which settlers wiped off the map. “The question of what constitutes civilised behaviour is at the heart of the plot. For those who are interested, the suggestion for recommended reading was Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens and its sequel, Homo Deus.Ĭolonialisation VS Assimilation: explorations of culture in Patrick Gale’s ‘A Place Called Winter’ Please feel free to add any of your own thoughts is the comment section! Below is the essay which was used to frame that discussion. This is a novel of secrets, sexuality and, ultimately, of great love.Our first book of the term – Patrick Gale’s A Place Called Winter – takes us to Edwardian England and Frontier Canada, and has led us to discuss the concept of culture and civilisation. In this exquisite journey of self-discovery, loosely based on a real life family mystery, Patrick Gale has created an epic, intimate human drama, both brutal and breathtaking. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before. Remote and unforgiving, his allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the golden suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England.

Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of his muted existence - until the shock of discovery and the threat of arrest cost him everything.įorced to abandon his wife and child, Harry signs up for emigration to the newly colonised Canadian prairies. I loved it.' - Jojo MoyesĪ privileged elder son, and stammeringly shy, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. 'Patrick Gale has written a book which manages to be both tender and epic, and carries the unmistakable tang of a true story.

A place called winter