| Admin History | Written in 1997-9 and first published in the United Kingdom in 2000, Rough Music has also been published in the United States in 2001 and translated into French (2002) and Dutch (2006).
The novel was the first time that Gale gave significant space to the narrative of a child. While he found the experience exciting, he was frustrated by the automatic association by the reader with Gale's own childhood growing up as the son of a prison governor. Yet the novel remains the most personal that Gale has written. Rough Music was also the first he wrote with Editor Patricia Parkin who encouraged him to undertake a more complex structure. Portraying the painful realities of being a gay child, of unrequited married love and of mental illness, Rough Music brought Gale the attention of thousands of new readers.
Elements of the novel can be traced back to the proposal for the televsion sitcom Meanwhile (see FCP1/F/1).
In 2002, Rough Music (2000) was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. |