Page Turners – January 2026 review

In January the Page Turners read ‘Notes From an Exhibition‘ by Patrick Gale. This book was published in 2007.

The book is about Rachel Kelly – a talented artist who suffers from bi-polar disorder. She dies at the start of the book and her family are left to make sense of the chaos that her talent and her condition have wreaked in their own lives.

The book takes its title from the information cards displayed beside works of art in a gallery or museum. Each chapter begins with a description of a possession or work of Rachel’s and goes on to tell us a related episode of her life. The episodes are not in chronological order but we gradually build up a picture of Rachel and her husband and four children and the lives they have led. Some of us found this made it rather disjointed whilst others enjoyed the way the author revealed things gradually. One of us had read the book before and definitely found that knowing what was coming next spoiled the enjoyment second time around. The lack of chronology meant that the ending of the book came as a surprise to some (especially if reading on a kindle) and left us wanting more.

The majority of us enjoyed reading the book, although the subject matter meant that it was not necessarily uplifting. We felt it was very well written and engaging. We were all interested in what we learned about the effects of Rachel’s illness and also about the Quaker faith which was practiced by Rachel’s family. We talked about the different characters of Rachel’s children and in particular, how the way they were parented impacted on their adult behaviours. We would have liked to have learned more about her husband and how he coped with the turbulent lifestyle of his talented but troubled wife.

We have definitely classed this book as a page turner. If you would like to read it for yourself do get in touch as some of us have copies that we can swap for one of your page turners. In the meantime several of us are intending to look for more books by the same author, including one with early scenes set in Teignmouth!

Deborah Wallis, convenor