In an attempt to rebound from his previous relationship, Eustace meets the calm and confident Theo on a dating app. Twenty years his junior, Theo is stationed on a military base, and their romance is confined to Skype calls. As they plan for Theo’s visit to London, Eustace, somewhere in his fifties, is diagnosed with cancer, and as part of his treatment must sit in a lead-lined room with nothing but a cheap MP3 player and a paperback book.

As he stares at his house just on the other side of the hospital window, Eustace takes us back through his childhood. He grew up a quiet, introspective child whose artistic pursuits never satisfied his parents until he found the cello. Under the guidance of the professional cellist, Carla Gold, Eustace’s life has meaning. But trying to make friends while his dad rents out their spare bedrooms as an old person’s home has always been difficult, and he’s never been very good at school, so through his relationship with the cello and the music he creates with it, he is able to put his life, all his achievements and his shortcomings, into perspective.

While at times the technical aspects of the music felt unnecessarily detailed, and led to the impression this was more memoir than fiction, Gale’s beautiful prose more than makes up for it. His cast of characters, also, have been drawn with such sympathy and vividness it is impossible to not feel for every one of them as they grow. By the end, I felt like I’d known them forever.

Take Nothing With You is a heartwarming tale of self discovery that will appeal to readers of Ian McEwan, and paves the way for a republication of Gale’s previous works, all with beautiful, matching covers.

Tom Davies works as a bookseller at Readings Doncaster.