Love,death,heartbreak, mental illness, homosexuality. Patrick Gale tackles all these and more with humor and poignancy. I love his writing; he is honest without being sentimental. His characters are so fully rounded I feel I know each one by the end of the book, and I care about each one. "Little Bits of Baby" follows Robin, who is reentering the world of his family and friends after 8 years in a monastery. His journey of self discovery begins when he steps back into the lives of his parents, and his two old friends, whose betrayal 8 years ago caused him to retreat. The lives of these 5, and several other, overlap and intertwine with humor, love, desperation and misunderstandings. Gale deftly peels back the layers of each one's story, revealing bit by bit the frailty of each, and the humanity. "Little Bits of Baby" also sent me searching my Nina Simone CDs for "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." I didn't find it there, but found it on YouTube. The song will never be an around-the-campfire song for me again, Simone reinvented it
