Book Review: "All the Lonely People" by Mike Gayle

All the Lonely People (not the Beatles' song) is emotional, thought-provoking, and heartwarming.

Hubert Bird has a full life. He and his best friends, Dotty, Dennis, and Harvey, are always up to some kind of shenanigans.

At least that’s what he tells his daughter Rose when she calls each week from Australia. The truth is, other than trips to the store and the vet for his cat, he barely sees or speaks to anyone. Dotty, Dennis, and Harvey don't even exist. Hubert is tremendously lonely, but he can’t let Rose know or she’ll worry.

But when Rose announces she’ll be visiting from Australia in a few months’ time and can’t wait to meet and spend time with Hubert’s friends, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Does he tell her the truth or does he spend the next few months trying to build the life he said he had?

With the help of a young single mother named Ashleigh and her daughter, Hubert will start to realize he’s not the only lonely person out there, and that loneliness isn’t anything to be ashamed of. But he’ll also need to come to terms with the things that led him to seek isolation, and figure out if it’s too late for him to start again.

I worried this would be another curmudgeon-becomes-cuddly story, but there’s so much more to this book than that. I love the way Mike Gayle tackled the idea of loneliness as it touches people of all ages, not just the elderly.

The story shifts between the past, starting with Hubert’s coming to London from Jamaica many years before, and the present. All the Lonely People is a tearjerker for sure but not overly maudlin.