A wonderful book, in which the reader has to pick through the layers of narrative. Each chapter begins with the curator's notes for the posthumous exhibition of works by bi-polar Rachel Kelly. Each layer is narrated from the standpoint of a different character: there's Rachel herself, her husband Anthony, and the 4 children, Garfield, Morwenna, Hedley and Petroc, oh and Winnie too, eventually. In many ways, these layers are revealed backwards. We begin with Rachel's death, and gradually her complicated story, and the almost equally complicated family life of the others starts to make sense. The challenges of living with someone with a depressive psychiatric condition, the underlying strength that the family's Quaker faith brings to them, the sense of place - this book is firmly based in the Cornwall that Gale loves so much - all add to a book which tells a gripping story in a sympathetic, compassionate and involving way. ( )

Rachel is a talented painter who suffers with bi-polar disorder. As a result her children have had a difficult childhood.

Jumping around chronologically, the books looks at Rachel's early life, her marriage, her children, and how her illness has impacted on their lives. A book largely about family rather than painting.

An easy to read, and well written book. The author does leave several important events unseen however, which did leave me finishing the book with a slight sense of the story being incomplete. ( )

[This is a review I wrote in 2012]

Rachel Kelly, one time celebrated artist, mother of four, wife to the calm and stoical Antony, and a bipolar sufferer, is found dead in her studio at home in Penzance. For Antony, her death throws into light questions about her past, her family and the circumstances of her life before they met. For her children, brought up under difficult circumstances with an erratic mother, often lacking the mother's love and warmth they felt their due, her death brings differing emotions, reactions and memories.

What Patrick Gale does, cleverly, with his plot, is to weave a family history around a framework of exhibition cards describing Rachel's paintings, posthumously on show, probably at the Tate Modern in St. Ives. He uses these as chapter breaks and goes on to intersperse the stories of Rachel's children at different ages in a non-linear way. The effect is bitty, as a family's personal history is, and it works by drawing your interest on many levels. All characters are worthy of expansion, all well-drawn and interesting; yet Patrick leaves much unsaid, using these sub-plots to draw the difficult character of Rachel. Many questions are left hanging in the reader's mind; not least of which is Antony's story of the years which have passed since he first met Rachel, rescued her from her despair in Oxford and took her to his grandfather's home in Penzance to begin a new life there. How has this quiet and loving Quaker man coped with the years with his bipolar wife and what has his relationship been with his children?

There are a few anachronisms and inconsistencies in the novel. I didn't particularly notice them when I was first reading the book and was caught up in the narrative, but they detract from the overall tightness of the writing; hence my 4 stars. I can, however, highly recommend 'Notes From an Exhibition', especially for its sensitive exploration of family life, grief and living with bipolar disorder. ( )

Set in a Quaker community in Cornwall. Artist Rachel dies and the secrets of her life come to light as her family look for answers. Great prose from Gale. I liked the descriptions of Quaker life enough to go to a meeting.

Not the bet Patirick Gale book I have read but will read more of his
It was a really good insight into mania and how it effects the sufferers and the people around them ( )