The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle: the most heartwarming and uplifting love story of the year

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year old Albert has been a postman all his adult life. And that’s all that people know about him. He is a loner, not because he hates people but he is afraid of them and of theirs discovering his big secret. But when he receives an official letter saying he has to retire from his job on his 65th birthday, Albert is left questioning his life choices. With no family, no friends and no future, is he destined to spend the rest of his life alone? Albert decides that it high time to take charge of the situation and being making some courageous changes in his life, including a search for his long lost love, George. I read the blurb for this book and wanted to try it based on the feeling that I was going to get something a little different from my usual. Here is an older MC – a closeted gay man facing his retirement and wondering about the love he lost 50 years ago. It also had a cat on the cover. It began with a lot of sad stuff, had me tearing up in places but by the end it was almost too perfectly smooth and easy. Sort of a Hallmark Movie in a book. As seen and heard on THE GRAHAM NORTON RADIO SHOW, BBC Radio 4’s WOMAN’S HOUR, RESONANCE FM, BBC Radio 2’S THE MICHAEL BALL SHOW, TalkRADIO’S THE BADASS WOMEN’S SHOW, TIMES RADIO with GILES COREN and many more . . . didn’t understand why so many people appeared so comfortable talking about their most intimate experiences. It was clearly something that had been encouraged by celebrity interviews, not to mention the social media that seemed to obsess everyone.” DISCLOSURE: Thank you to RB Media via Netgalley for providing an audio ARC of The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

REVIEW: The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain

In conclusion, I did enjoy the plot overall; however, I think that The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle would have been better off as a short story rather than a full-length novel. In all of Albert’s life, until now, all he had was his job as a postal carrier. He takes great pride and joy carrying the post, it is an honor and a privilege and he feels, for the most part, fulfilled, because of this job. Whether it was God, fate, Albert get’s notice that it is time for him to retire, something ALbert did not see coming. Because the job is the only thing that gets him out of the house, into the world, the only connection he has to other people, knowing that shortly this job will end, slowly Albert devolves. He does not know what to do. All his routines are coming undone.It tries too hard to incorporate varied social commentary in the narrative, with topics ranging from Afro hair to climate change. I understand the need for topics but the core issue here was huge enough without treating the book as a chance to send more meaningful messages for societal betterment. It saddens me when I hear that someone has lived their life in 'secret' for fear of being branded something other than which they are - human. This audiobook contains exclusive interviews by Matt Cain with gay men on their experiences growing up through the 1950s to in the 1970s and the 1980s. year-old Albert Entwistle has been a postie in a quiet town in Northern England for all his life, living alone since the death of his mam 18 years ago. He keeps himself to himself. He always has. But he's just learned he'll be forced to retire at his next birthday. With no friends and nothing to look forward to, the lonely future he faces terrifies him. He realises it's finally time to be honest about who he is. He must learn to ask for what he wants. And he must find the courage to look for the man that, many years ago, he lost - but has never forgotten . . .

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle (Audio Download): Matt The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle (Audio Download): Matt

Albert doesn't have any family or friends. He doesn't have any interests, outside of his job, to fill his time. What he does have are regrets for a life he could have led, but didn't. Now he has three months before retirement to figure out how to start living his life as he always imagined it to be. Will he be able to begin sharing his true self with others for the first time in his life? He lives alone with his cat Gracie and listening to music is the highlight of his day. He has no friends and no human love in his life. Now sixty-five and being forced into retirement from a job he's held all his life, Albert decides it's finally time to truly start living. Gathering up the courage he didn't know he had, Albert begins a search to find George - the boy he loved with his whole heart and has never forgotten. Cain writes Albert's journey of courage from here like the opening of a budded flower. Albert, in his journey to find his one lost love, finds love and acceptance of himself; he finds friends and allies in unlikely places and knowledge that the world has changed enough so that he can embrace being the person he wants to be. Albert knows he can't keep on living this way. He knows he has made mistakes and he lost the love of his life, George. They were teenagers when they fell in love and Albert is responsible for their breakup. After much self-analyzing, he makes a decision. He will open up to people, start looking for George and apologize for what he did. Albert Entwistle has worked his whole adult life delivering the mail. He knows his route like the palm of his hand. Yet, he has kept to himself for 50 years without interacting with anyone on his course.He remembered comparing himself to one of Reenie’s pictures that was still being coloured in; he could see now that he’d always be colouring himself in, just as everyone else was. But that was fine. Because the picture he was working on was much richer and much more colourful than it used to be.” Note: I have edited this transcript down from the original video to exclude some of the more chatty parts of the conversation so it is not as long.

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle - Feeling Book Review: The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle - Feeling

year old Albert has been a postman all his adult life. And that’s all that people know about him. He is a loner, not because he hates people but he is afraid of them and of theirs discovering his big secret. When he receives an official letter saying he has to retire from his job on his 65th birthday, Albert is left questioning his life choices. With no family, no friends and no future, is he destined to spend the rest of his life alone? Albert decides that it high time to take charge of the situation and begin making some courageous changes in his life, including a search for his long lost love, George. Albert's coming out is a wonderfully warm story that had me with earplugs in, listening at every opportunity. It's a story of personal growth, of a man filled with fear and shame who slowly becomes honest with himself, optimistic and looking forward to his future. It's an emotional story. I cried for Albert the teenager, and for his friend George. I was saddened by the unhappy, reclusive man Albert became. I wept tears of joy and relief as Albert found himself, his new self, a man who made friends and helped others. There were places I laughed out loud, and snorted coffee through my nose. But perhaps we need a book in which this happens. It won’t make up for the past but as Albert says, he’s partly continuing his search to find George not only for himself but for all the men who lost their loves or their lives due to prejudice, HIV or having lived when being open and out wasn’t possible. For this I say, fling the glitter and confetti. Is change best when it is forced upon us? Albert, with nothing to lose because his whole world is upending, hatches a plan that will change his life. When you are no longer able to change a situation, you are then challenged to change yourself. But change, although possible, is never easy. So, on the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday, Albert decides it's finally time to be honest about who he is, and to find the happiness in his life that he deserves but that he always denied himself. And the happiness Albert is referring to is George Atkinson. CW – homophobia, gay bashing, casual racism, death of child with cancer, parental emotional abuse, death of elderly petWonderful. Written with such a good heart, filled with joy and strength and optimism . . . inventive and fun but most importantly, true.' RUSSELL T. DAVIES MC: It gets so much better, hang in there, you won’t believe how much better it can get. And everything you think is closed to you; you will be able to achieve one day. Never give up, never lose faith in yourself. I’d like to think he’d be quite happy with the way things have turned out.