Facing the Tank

by Patrick Gale

Overview

Patrick Gale's FACING THE TANK is a witty, eccentric novel of clergy, scandal and English eccentrics - 'Made me laugh out loud' Sunday Times'

'Gale speedily unleashes his merrily black mischief. The uncovering of the sadness behind the doilies and twinsets is in the best tradition of black humour' Observer

American Professor Evan Kirby, moving to Barrowcester to research Paradise after a successful book on Hell, expects a very English cathedral society of gentle clergymen and coffee mornings. What he finds instead is a town thrown into chaos by strange, supernatural events, scandalous pregnancies and a Satanic summoning of a young feral girl.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472255549
Publisher:	Headline
Publication date:	10/15/2024
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight. He spent his infancy at Wandsworth Prison, which his father governed, then grew up in Winchester before going to Oxford University. He now lives on a farm near Land's End. One of this country's best-loved novelists, his most recent works are A Perfectly Good Man, the Richard and Judy bestseller Notes From An Exhibition, the Costa-shortlisted A Place Called Winter and Take Nothing With You. His original BBC television drama, Man In An Orange Shirt, was shown to great acclaim in 2017 as part of the BBC's Queer Britannia series, leading viewers around the world to discover his novels.

Editorial Reviews

Gale speedily unleashes his merrily black mischief. The uncovering of the sadness behind the doilies and twinsets is in the best tradition of black humour—Observer

Gale is intoxicated with words and feeds upon them with a kind of manic relish . . . The sheer funniness of Facing the Tank made me laugh out loud. Its optimism delighted me—Sunday Times

Original and amusing. An elegant, witty writer with an engagingly bizarre imagination—Sunday Telegraph

A commendably intelligent, entertaining and moving novel—TLS

From the Publisher

According to PW , Gale has ``carried off yet another ridiculously crazy tour de force.'' The English village of Barrowcester gets turned upside-down: an American authority on hell researches heaven; the bishop is having ``Doubts''; a Cardinal impregnates a villager; a schoolboy thinks he has fathered a litter of puppies. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Visiting the English village of Barrowcester to research material for his book on the supernatural, middle-aged American scholar Evan Kirby finds the place and its people wistfully odd. Dawn seeks the devil. The Bishop hunts true doubt. His mother is a medium. Meanwhile, Evan is falling for Madeleine, newly pregnant with the Cardinal's child. The result is a witty novel of manners that gently satirizes the travails of the village and its people. Its tone is even, its humor subtle, and its transitions from scene to scene smooth, so that our sense of place and story is exact. Highly recommended.-- Joseph M. Levandoski, Free Lib. of Philadelphia

Library Journal