| Admin History | Written in 2006 and published in the United Kingdom in 2007, Notes from an Exhibition was also translated into Dutch (2008) and French (2009).
Cornwall features heavily in the novel, with much of the plot based in and around Penzance, Notes from an Exhibition was born out of Gale's desire to write about a female painter and deals with her artistic obsession, bipolarism and in common with many of his novels, the relationships within her family.
The novel has a complex structure, with each chapter opening with curator's notes from a posthumous exhibition of the central character's work. Each chapter is narrated form a different character's viewpoint. Gale drew on his own experience of visiting his mother in wake of his father's death, and also his brother Matthew's death in a car crash when Gale was 21 which is represented in the novel's traumatic ending.
Gale's biggest selling novel to date, Notes from and Ehxibition presented the author to a new and wide-ranging audience through its inclusion in Channel Four's Richard and Judy's Bookclub in 2008. In 2008 Notes from an Exhibition also won the Booksellers Association Independent Booksellers' Book Prize. |