When Dave Win is thirteen years old, he is awarded a scholarship to a prestigious public school. The son of a dressmaker and a mysterious Burmese man whom his mother never speaks of, Dave's place at Bampton School opens the doors to the most exclusive enclaves of mid-century English society, and ignites in him a lifelong love of performing. His benefactor, Mark Hadlow, takes an interest in Dave - perhaps seeing in him something which is lacking in his own callous, boorish son, Giles - and the occasions on which Mark shines the light of his attention on Dave prove a balm to the casual racism and feelings of not quite fitting in which are Dave's lot at school.

Over the ensuing years, Dave builds a close friendship with Mark and his wife, Cara, but the differences between them - benefactor and beneficiary; patron and pauper - form an invisible chasm which cannot be bridged.

Initially, the book is framed as if learning of Mark Hadlow's death is the catalyst which sends Dave spiralling through decades' worth of memories. However, a shocking reveal in the closing chapters reframes the narrative entirely, causing the reader to consider Dave's storytelling in a new light.

The first part of the book sees Dave navigate an unapologetically white English institution as a brown, fatherless boy, whilst also coming to terms with his sexuality in an era when, as a professor reads to his students from an article, 93% of the population believed that gay men should be given medical and psychological treatment to cure them of their unnatural desires. Towards the end of this part, we check in with Dave as he gets ready to graduate from Oxford University; he is palpably freer to be himself after the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 legalised homosexuality, but, so used is he to trying to conform to the expectations of others, Dave still struggles to feel truly liberated.

Born in 1948, Dave is part of the 'baby boomer' generation who were born amid a wave of post-war optimism, came of age in a decade of social tumult and crossed over from middle to old age in an age of rapidly expanding technology and quickly evolving societal mores. Hollinghurst uses the passage of time as a backdrop against which Dave's life unfolds, allowing the reader to largely make their own observations about how attitudes to race and sexuality have changed across one man's lifetime, presenting novel challenges in each era.

Amid the seedy, hidden glimpses of the kind of life a gay man might be able to live in the 1960s, Dave finds small glimmers of validation which help him feel less ashamed and more hopeful - a respected professor using the term 'making love' to refer to an act which is routinely condemned as being deviant; the loving, but very normal relationship between his mother and another woman. The people he meets - from his youth through his adulthood - are a testament to the fact that gay men have never been a monolith of sinister, sex-obsessed predators, but rather contain multitudes, just like any other section of the population. In the present day timeline, Dave is married to his husband, Richard, and the fact that this would have been utterly inconceivable when he first started to wonder about his sexuality is a pointed reminder to the reader both of how far society has come in its acceptance of queerness and of how recently this was far from the case.

Similarly Hollinghurst explores how Dave's experiences as a mixed-race East Asian person (and actor) morph over time from outright racist comments and being the punchline of so-called jokes in his school days to being typecast, overlooked or fetishised throughout his career. The final chapters, which take place during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, are a stark reminder of the rise in anti-Asian hate which occurred during this time: a response to the virus originating in Wuhan, China. Interestingly, the inclusion of a relationship with another actor who is Black allows us to view the challenges Dave faces through another lens; he feels discriminated against but his Black peers view his proximity to whiteness as an advantage.

The foil to Dave is his schoolmate - and Mark and Cara's son - Giles Hadlow, who drifts in and out of Dave's life. A tormentor in their school days, a passing acquaintance at Oxford and latterly, a high profile politician and ardent Brexiteer whom Dave cannot quite believe that millions of people take seriously. (I'm sure I'm not the only reader who read Giles as a facsimile of Boris Johnson.) With precision and subtlety, Hollinghurst presents the reader with two men who have, on paper, been given identical opportunities, but whose lives have diverged entirely in the years since they first crossed paths. If Dave, who at one point refers to his youth as 'a chaos of privilege and prejudice', could be said to represent progress towards a more tolerant and inclusive society, then Giles certainly represents a reactionary, conservative faction which, as we all came to learn, constitutes more than half of the population. Indeed, he exemplifies the type of individual one could imagine originating as a casually racist school bully and aging into the Leave voting, Britain First supporting decrier of how the country has fallen to immigrants.

The poignancy with which Hollinghurst captures small moments, such as a boys vs fathers cricket match at Bampton, or the story of the mannequin couple who inhabit the window display of Dave's mother's shop, is remarkable, crafting a vivid sense of place, time and feeling. However, although the novel is largely about these seemingly inconsequential moments that constitute a life, because of this there were times when I almost missed more significant events and had to re-read to find a single sentence which heralded, for example, the end of a major relationship. My other gripe was with the pacing of the middle part of the book, which lagged in comparison with the cohesive narrative arcs of the beginning and end.

A beautifully written, moving story which is a testament to Booker Prize winner Hollinghurst's pedigree and continued relevance.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Our Evenings" is Hollinghurst's most recent novel exploring modern British life through Dave Win's journey, intertwining superb narrative with late 20th-century British society. Crafted in masterful prose, Hollinghurst entraps nuances in each character giving them unique voices. Beyond individual experience, this book is a profound social commentary on race and class. Hollinghurst's observations on power dynamics is on-point. The novel blends character study and critique, reflecting contemporary life in a way only Hollinghurst can do. I highly recommend this book. All opinions are my own. Full review to be posted on Goodreads.

I enjoyed this.

We follow the life of Dave Win, headed off to boarding school as a teenager as recipient of a scholarship, with all the new and intimidating experiences that boarding school brings, particularly for a young man who is becoming aware of his sexuality.

Throughout his life, things tie back to Dave's school experiences, and to the family who provided his sponsorship - the parents who he clearly admires and respects, but the son Giles who was bullying and exploitative - and who's now a senior Tory politician! Dave finds his own way in life though, and finds happiness and peace.

The ending is beautifully written, and sad. I did enjoy being able to listen to the Radio 4 abridgement straight after reading, and searched out some interviews with Alan Hollinghurst too.

My first Holinghurst and most definitely not my last ! I loved the writing and sense of place , it reads like a very 'English' book if that makes any sense . The book is sort of like a memoir about David , we follow him from the 60s at boarding school to the 80s where he works as an actor and then to the present day . I guess plot wise it is minimal but if you are a fan of a character driven novel then this is perfect to get lost in, Yes, it probably could do with being slightly shorter in length but i was so lost in the writing I could easily read more . Now to read his earlier work to see how it compares !

Not an easy read nor a very funny one but a book that engrossed me as I was fascinated by the style of writing and the voice of the characters.
A personal story but also the a collective story.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

'Our Evenings' is the story of would be actor Dave Win: recipient of a scholarship to his local boarding school. The story unfolds over Dave's life and the way in which he remains connected to his benefactors' family, and in particular to their horrendous son, Giles. I found Dave's story beautifully told and very moving, as he navigates life and his sexuality. It's a slow, pondering read which I enjoyed very much.

As a huge fan of Alan Hollinghurst, I was very excited to read Our Evenings. Thank you to the publishers for the ARC.

The book contains some of the most subtly beautiful prose I've ever read. Hollinghurst has a way of describing everyday occurrences- a ride in a car, for example - that bring them vividly to life and make them sparkle. I underlined so many sentences and passages. I paused, taking in the words he'd chosen, and marvelled. He makes writing feel fresh and new, even at this stage in his career.

For the first 75% of the book, I enjoyed reading it. I never had that urgent feeling of wanting to get back. I never missed it. But when I was reading, I was engrossed and entertained. Even after I realised that the book is completely un-propulsive, I enjoyed reading it for what it was. By about the three quarter mark, however, I was desperate to be done. There's so little plot or story. It jumps from time period to time period with the bare minimum of hand holding to usher you there. I have a friend who constantly tells story about people I don't know, acting like saying "I went to the theatre with John and Mary and John said..." I don't know John or Mary. This book felt like that. David was constantly surrounded by never before mentioned characters and the prose treated them like the reader should know and care who they were. It began to be frustrating, and the narration is done at a distant level, so it was hard to stay immersed. Despite the book being in 1st person, I don't feel like I really knew David Win by the end. I definitely didn't feel like I knew any of the other characters well.

Then after 500 pages of almost nothing happening, huge, traumatising drama. I felt resentful that after dedicating myself to such a long book, Hollinghurst ejected me on such a sad, distressing note. I didn't feel like it was earned or necessary.

I also, while being totally open to reading books written by authors of identities different than their characters, couldn't entirely buy into this story of a mixed race man written by a white man who wouldn't have had the necessary personal experiences to completely communicate the experience in a way that felt believable. Especially given the first person. I can't say anything felt wrong, although David's experiences of racism were relatively mild and superficial until the very end. I liked the insight, but I would have preferred it from someone with lived experience.

I will remember this book and I'm glad I read it, but I ultimately preferred some of his other novels by a large margin.

All the feelings of a big classic novel. This is old-fashioned storytelling, complete with lush prose, layers of characterisation, and a context that lives as much as the characters do. A really immersive story about struggles of class, race, sexuality, and family in post-war Britain. I wish I’d been able to submerge myself in this more completely, a drawn out reading let me miss a bit of nuance I’m sure. An excellent read.

Really really beautiful and touching book. I really love this author he captures the yearning and deep deep sadness and joy of love. The setting is so accurate and I was entranced thank you.

Really enjoyed this book. Excited to see what comes next from the author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read it!

I really wanted to enjoy this book a lot more than I did but the pace was just too slow for me to be enraptured by the plot. There were parts that I enjoyed more than others but overall I was just underwhelmed.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

Our Evenings is the fictional biography of David Win. Born of mixed heritage parents and gay, sent to a well to do public school and then Oxford, he is both an insider and an outsider. He is an interesting character and he acquires a depth and plausibility as the narrative progresses. Some chapters of his life are quite moving and I also enjoyed some of the minor characters, such as Esme. However it was fairly meandering in nature, with some chapters feeling a little slow. I also felt that the novel hung a significance on the Hadlow family, and in particular the character of Giles, that I couldn’t quite fathom. I wasn’t sure if I had missed something, which made me feel a bit dim.

'Our Evenings' offers a superb chronicle of post-war British life from 1960s boarding schools to Brexit through the life of the narrator Dave Win, a half-Burmese actor, and his interactions with the wealthy Hadlow family.

Dave is only able to attend Bampton School as a Hadlow Exhibitioner thanks to the generosity of left-wing plutocrat and philanthropist Mark Hadlow; Dave enjoys staying with Mark and his wife Cara, but is less enamoured of their son Giles, the school bully who is at Bampton with Dave. We then follow Dave as he wins a scholarship to Oxford and then makes a career in acting, first with Terra, a revolutionary theatrical company and later in more established roles. At the same time, we see Giles Hadlow's progress in business and right-wing politics, culminating in him becoming the minister for Brexit, much to his parents' disappointment.

A number of threads run through Alan Hollinghurst's novel: as well as its exploration of British politics, the novel depicts race relations from 1960s to the present as we see Dave's experiences of being one of the only people of colour at his boarding school and in the small Berkshire market town where he lives with his British mother (Dave has no knowledge of his Burmese mother), and the ongoing prejudice he continues to face in acting and elsewhere. As with Hollinghurst's previous novels, gay life is another major theme as Dave grapples with his sexuality and feelings of attraction to different men before embarking on various relationships at different stages of his life, ending with a happy marriage in his later years. Hollinghurst also presents Dave's mother Avril's relationship with her customer, business partner and later life partner, Esme Croft, and the lesbian community to which they belong, a bravely defiant group in the 1960s and 1970s. Dave's relationship with his mother might be the most tender part of this novel, an unconditionally loving and supportive relationship.

This novel is beautifully written and observed, and I enjoyed the depictions of the arts world - dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, actors' digs, literary festivals. In general, the worlds Hollinghurst depicts are fairly privileged, but Dave tends to exist on their margins because of his ethnicity, sexuality and socioeconomic status, giving him an outsider's clarity.

Many thansk to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me an ARC to review.

I've not read any Hollinghurst before, but this struck me as an Ishiguro-esque story, which can only be a positive thing. The novel is a poignant and well-written coming-of-age tale.

It is about dealing with all sorts of prejudices, subtle and overt, in post-war England, up to modern day, and the personal aspect of the story is very engaging.

THE contemporary english prose stylist. like is there another writer operating at a sentence by sentence level like this. don't think so. GORGEOUS!

Hollinghurst is one of those writers who disappears off the radar for about a decade and then comes out with such a brilliant book everyone wonders why he is not more prolific. ‘The Folding Star’ was one of the first gay novels I ever read, along with Edmund White’s ‘A Boy’s Own Story’.

These two writers have bookended my gay reading life ever since; not a bad place to start. And now there is a new crop of bright young things crowding through the doors that these two writers flung open so forcefully in their own ascendancy.

I read ‘The Line of Beauty’ before it won the Booker – I was surprised that such an unapologetically gay (and anti-conservative; liberal is not the correct word) novel won such a prestigious award. May Hollinghurst was, too.

One reviewer – I think it was from The Washington Post, which makes sense as American audiences are notoriously prudish – remarked archly that Hollinghurst’s books should be sold with smelling salts, given the graphic (gay) sexual content.

Reading ‘Our Evenings’ – Hollinghurst’s best book to date, in my opinion – and reflecting on his oeuvre, not even ten books, if I recall, it is remarkable how much his preoccupations have changed, and stayed the same, over the decades.

Female characters take the centre stage for a large chunk, the beautiful story of David’s mother and her lesbian lover who defy the prejudice of the time and carve out a magnificent life together. Yes, the gay son and his mother is an unfortunate trope of the genre, but Hollinghurst adds such grace and melancholy to this defining relationship of David’s life.

You do get a sense of Hollinghurst ticking off the boxes: female characters, check. Race and politics, check. And acting! I can’t recall if Hollinghurst has ever written about theatre life before, but he evokes this bohemian idyll with wit and wonder.

Of course, our protagonist segues from (barely) working actor to threadbare writer, and Hollinghurst has great fun in comparing the deficiencies and pecking orders of both, an experience he has no doubt been subjected every time a new book pops out and he is trundled out by his publisher like a main exhibit in a courtroom drama.

It is also Hollinghurst’s most overtly political book to date. No spoilers, but I was a bit taken aback by the coda. Is it necessary? Then again, a main theme here is memory, and who lives on to remember, and recount, our own stories and those of our friends and loved ones, against the inexorable tide of history, which has a nasty habit of regressing to our base natures. A comment on Brexit: “In a few weeks history went backwards by a century.”

A stickler for detail, I thought Hollinghurst had forgotten about the bloody birdbath in the garden and its cryptic legend of SENSIM SINE SENSU. But it pops up again at exactly the right moment, and we learn the phrase means: “slowly, without sensing it, we grow old.” And that is the best way to enjoy this extraordinarily rich paean to memory and loss: slowly, savoured in the gloaming of our evenings.

This has been my first read of a novel by Alan Hollinghurst and I am so pleased I decided to select this for one of my December reads. Having had a bit of a bumpy reading year, I have found that I have been picking up books reading a few pages before being unable to continue and settle on one. When starting ‘Our Evenings’, I was immediately drawn to the narrator David Win, at this point in the story an elderly semi-famous actor who is visiting an even older figure called Cara. Decades earlier, Cara Hadlow and her husband Mark had provided David with a scholarship that enabled him to attend a top boarding school in turn opening a world that would have been unthinkable to him being from a working class, single parent family.
The novel spans through David’s life as a young boy navigating the perils of boarding school and being dual heritage in 1960s Britain. His mother, Avril, is a dressmaker whilst his Burmese father remains absent throughout the entire novel. Despite David’s curiosity he remains reluctant to discuss his father with his mother in fear of upsetting her. During his time at school David becomes aware of his homosexuality whilst also being the subject of bullying in varying degrees. Sometimes it is flippant and dismissive racism, other times it is overt. A significant proportion of this treatment comes from the Hadlow’s own son Giles who also attends the school where David lives. The two boys grow up alongside each other, yet they are shown to be worlds apart both socially and politically.
Giles intersperses David’s narrative and almost acts as a counter to his views and ideologies. In a scene towards the end of the novel they both attend a book event held in an English stately home. Both have become authors, David’s book on acting and Giles, who has made it quite high within the British government, has written a political tome. They are scheduled at the same time and David’s audience is very sparse whilst Giles wins most of the spectators from this very particular crowd. The scene is quite a humorous one and yet I was struck by Giles’s seeming desire to be away from David. Despite David having grown up with Giles and even staying at the family home when he was young the two men have never been friendly which again seems to suggest or question how much society has really changed over time, how archaic opinions of class and identity remain much to our detriment.
The novel skillfully moves over the years of David’s life and works to Illustrate the cultural and political climate of each time. David eventually becomes an older man, and it is interesting how age and youth become a focus for him and how he gradually becomes estranged from the boy who started school all those years ago. Age finally creeps up on him as it does us all. The cast of characters that come into David’s life are so well drawn and nuanced, I could have happily spent more time reading about them. David’s mother Avril, who during the novel forms a relationship with Esme, who they pretend on the surface is her business partner but who are quite clearly in a romantic relationship together. They try to conceal this from David in the early years but are gradually able to be reveal this with the passage of time. We do not see much of this due to events being from David’s perspective. Like other characters who come and go in David’s life, we only see them during interactions with him. The novel culminates in a way to show us why this is the case and provides the insight and poignancy that makes it unforgettable. It is a beautiful book that explores the intricacies and pathways of a single life lived.
Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC

This was my first time reading Alan Hollinghurst and I absolutely adored his writing. When I opened the first chapter and saw that it was going to be a Brexit novel I was a little tentative as I tend not to get into state-of-the-nation novels but in fact much of the story goes back to early life of Dave Win as he navigates being sent to an exclusive boarding school as a scholarship boy and then struggling as an actor through much of the story. This means the main thrust of the narrative takes place in the 1960-80s and is more a meditation on how men are shaped by experiences and how two men, Dave and the future right-wing politician Giles, could grow up in such close proximity and go on such divergent paths. For me the real beauty in the novel went back to the aching longing and uncertainty of first love as an adolescent and the blossoming of Dave and his understanding of the world and the adults around him. And I think that Hollinghurst has that rare talent of just being a beautiful wordsmith above all else. Definitely a novel I will be pressing into everyone’s hands and re-reading again and again.

A deep historical novel on love in all its forms

First, I'll put aside my one disquiet: the main character David Win is biracial, of an unseen, un-looked-for Burmese father and a beloved white mother. Hollinghurst is neither biracial nor Burmese. Some interviews around this book raise the idea of cultural appropriation but don't really address it. In the novel, Hollinghurst himself disengages with Win's Burmese heritage by making him incurious of his unknown father, which is a neat side step, and one of my notes of disquiet about the book. It doesn't feel realistic, and certainly not logical, but then I'm speaking as someone who's British-Chinese and not Alan Hollinghurst, so what do I know?

Besides that disquiet, I thought the novel brilliantly illuminated Dave win's life as a gay jobbing actor throughout the decades, his love for his mother chief among the highlights. Dave win is distanced from almost all the people in his life by being gay or by being not white, but he is still a warm presence throughout, so the ending is all the more shocking and violent, and the tragedy of finally finding an enduring love made all the more poignant. By then, he felt like a real person to me, and so the novel ends on a bittersweet note, that we have travelled with an empathetic and curious man from teenhood to old age, without anything more to be read.

This is like drinking a glass of fine red wine that reveals its flavours the more you drink.

The main character is Dave Win whose mother is British but his (absent) father was Burmese. Avril ,his mum, is a skilled seamstress who has a business in a small country town. Dave is given a scholarship to a public school, sponsored by the Hadlow family and meets their son Giles there.

Giles seems to be a character reminiscent of Boris Johnson in many ways and Dave finds him difficult, but builds up a more positive relationship with his benefactors, Cara and Mark Hadlow .

Meanwhile his loving relationship with his mum develops as a result of her relationship with Esme Dave is taken on a holiday to the seaside and guesses that the relationship between the two women is more than a business one. On the same holiday he begins to explore his own sexuality.

Dave has a burgeoning acting career which is charted . Although there are some time switches the plot itself is more linear than Hollinghurst's last Novel The Sparsholt Affair which I found more "difficult".

Dave himself is an interesting character. he is battling prejudice for racist reasons as well as his sexuality. However I was left wondering if I really liked him?
I think the scene I will most remember is Dave sorting his mother's clothes after her death- very moving. I wasn't so sure about the last chapter and the "conceit" of Dave's memoirs.

A coming of age novel with links to Great Expectations,