A Gesture To Love

A Gesture to Love opens with June, the love of Dave Robinson's life, learning that his wife and children have been killed in a road accident. The opportunity presents itself of putting right her mistake in letting him go in the first place. They meet up, but both decide that it is too late for the pair of them. Thus, Dave must rebuild his life without her, though not without his great friends Jed and Eddie Miles, and another, Jeff Taylor, who joins them as Professors in the Business School of a new university in the North of England where he was made a Professor in the 1960s. What follows is not the familiar campus novel, that dwells on the eccentricities of the academics, but which, long before the end, maintains that they are essentially lovable. This novel ditches this image. There is nothing lovable about Jed Miles, who like his brother, is a serial and ruthless womaniser, even if he is closer to sanity than Eddie, who shares his habits. Dave and Jeff are essentially decent, but they get caught up in the anarchic and irresponsible behaviour all around them especially when the Swinging London of the 1960s is sampled. What the Miles brothers do is to translate the sex and the corruption to their new setting, and they are wonderfully successful in doing so. This is true of the 1980s too, to which the focus of the novel changes once Dave becomes a widower. This is the time of the Thatcher cull of the academics, and university life becomes a whole new ball game. This does not stop the sex and the laughs from coming thick and fast, and if Dave can resist the multitude of temptations before him, there is the prospect of him finding happiness once more.

Author: J. R. Merstone

Publisher: Independently Published

Publication Date: Apr 13, 2022

Number of Pages: 212 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: NA

ISBN-13: 9798802051115