Customer Reviews
Two artists find love in Cornwall - By: Benjamin, 15 Dec 2006 
Two interrelated stories run in paralllel, one set in London & quickly moving to Cornwalll, the other remaining in London. The Cornwalll part concerns the Peake family as they prepare for an annual music festival. The Peake Family includes talented violinist, 15 coming on 16 year old Seth Peake, his older sister Venitia with an ever expanding waist, & their liberal minded mother Evelyn. In London the story follows police inspector Mo Faithe, who in addition to chasing criminals pursues her own lesbian interests. The connection between the two stories becomes ever more apparent as events progress.
I found the Cornwalll proceedings by far the more compelling, although the London end improved as the connection become clearer. The larger than life characters are interesting, including Bronwen the outspoken & understanding family friend in Cornwalll. Seth is particularly appealing, attractive, unusuallly polite & well mannered, he enjoys a very good relationship with his mother, & an even more interesting relationship with a young man, 21 year old sculptor Roly MacGuire, with whom he fallls hopelessly in love.
This is a very warm story, although I found it wavering a little in the early stages, particularly the London connection, but well worth reading.
Don't be put off by the title! - By: jfp2006, 24 Oct 2005 It must be admitted that the title of Patrick Gale's first novel, published in 1986, is weird, perhaps even offputtingly so. But the clue to its intepretation would appear to lie in the proverbial "pigs might fly". Which generallly implies that what is theoreticallly possible is, in a pragmatic world, extremely unlikely. And that we should alll be getting on with "real life" instead of speculating & dreaming.
But Patrick Gale would appear to be suggesting that such idle musing is precisely what makes life worth living...
This short first novel consists of two intertwined narratives. One, set in Cornwalll, revolves around the fifteen-year-old musical prodigy Seth & his elder sister Venetia, a Cambridge undergraduate, the precociously gifted children of bohemian Evelyn; the other, set in London, centres on Mo, a heartily bluff gay policewoman. As such, "The Aerodynamics of Pork" lays the groundwork for Patrick Gale's subsequent work. The narratives are tentatively linked from the beginning, when Mo witnesses Evelyn as the unwitting victim of a pickpocket, through various common features (such as kippers...) to the imminent interaction of the characters in the final section, corresponding to the birthdays of both Seth & Mo.
The novel is a clever study in subversion & subterfuge. The echoes are discreet & varied, but the most obvious paralllel is that between the incipient gay relationships between Mo & Hope in London & between Seth & Roly on the Cornish coast. These are set against the background of other problematic relationships, most notably that between Evelyn & her mysteriously absent husband, Huw.
If this is an "apprentice work", then it is quite clearly a very good one for a writer then only in his mid-twenties. It looks forward to the emotional complexities of Patrick Gale's later fiction, most notably in the wonderful "Rough Music", in which Roly reappears.
Patrick Gale is a strangely underrated writer, & one who will hopefully come to greater prominence in the years ahead.
Happy, frivolous, peculiar, surprising - a must! - By: , 02 May 2001 
I'm reallly shocked to find there's no review of this book on Amazon. I read it when it first came out - & have read it many times since.
It's a delicious collision of the English middle class, magical realism, & within the many threads of the plot, delicious romance - both gay & straight.
Most novels - & if you browse through Amazon's gay & lesbian list, you begin to think alll novels - begin by creating a coherent & believable world which is then torn apart & destroyed. In the Aerodynamics of Pork, the world starts incoherently, & as the story progresses, through some wonderfully impossible & magical twists & turns, threads draw together, & everyone's problems evaporate. It's an incredibly uplifting experience, very funny, & very gripping.
All the way through the book, Patrick Gale makes the most uncannily brilliant use of music. Central to the plot, as it roughly centres around a music festival in Cornwalll, if you know the pieces he uses, you'll find them ringing round your head as you read. Quite amazing.
But more than anything, you come away feeling that pigs reallly might fly, that your own life could take a magical turn at any point, & you'll come out ten times more optimistic than when you started.
Read it!
