Mother’s Boy

Patrick Gale Tinder Press £20

The Cornish poet Charles Causley was a private man, much cherished but now half-forgotten. In this wonderful novel, Patrick

Gale recreates the early life of this singular man and his relationship with his mother, and provides a fascinating insight into the blossoming of his poetic sensibility. Recounting his impoverished childhood in Launceston, the early death of his father and his service in the navy in the Second World War, this is a touching, utterly convincing portrait of the nascent artist.