The books that CHANGED MY LIFE

Patrick Gale Cornish author Patrick Gale returns with Mother’s Boy. Here, he shares the books that have made him laugh, cry and think…

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME LAUGH

I’m a big fan of Driving Short Distances by Joff Winterhart, about a hopeless young man doing a pointless job. It’s deliriously funny and its depiction of masculinity and its insecurities is keenly observed.

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY

I don’t often cry over books but Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain made me worry about how it would end. The poverty and abuse it depicts are appalling, but the young hero’s incongruously elegant wit, his urge to make things nice, restores your faith in humanity.

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED THE WAY I THINK

Tales Of The City, about a naive young heroine, made me stop apologising for who I was, stop assuming readers would be shocked by the truth, and stop putting on a literary ‘voice’.

THE BOOK THAT GOT ME THROUGH A TOUGH TIME

The worst thing that ever happened to me was the death in a car crash of my brother when he was just 25. Fogged by grief, I picked up a novel at random. It was A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch, about a young man stumbling out of marriage into the discovery of desires. There was something comforting in her calm acceptance that life is full of violence and uncontrollable emotions but that there are also moments of quiet revelation.

THE BOOK I MOST OFTEN GIVE TO OTHERS

I’ve lost count of the friends to whom I’ve given books by Tessa Hadley and Anne Tyler. They both have such psychological acuteness and deep humanity that you’re not just giving a book, but a wise new friend. I’d start with Hadley’s The Past or Tyler’s Breathing Lessons.