To wallow in a novel by Hollinghurst is never a comfortable read and there lies much of the joy. He picks characters who could drip cliche and builds them into relatable people as he sets them in their own context, current and past.

This is a look back at a life of academic brilliance enhanced by a scholarship to a private school. His benefactors suppport him throughout his life both with their munificence and their ability to listen and understand. Our protaganist, David Win is illegitimate, half Burmese and inevitably the but of teasing and power plays. His single white mother runs her own business and is pushed to the edge of society in different ways from her son.

It echoes McEwan's "Lessons" and Boyd's "Any Human Heart" in the breadth of life, the episodic narration which skips great chunks. By lacing together formative experiences into the stuff of everyday life none of the players in the story are sketchy. This is counter-culture and eccentricity writ large.

Whilst I loved reading this book and found it propulsive, my overwhelming feelings were that it was too long and lost some of the mystique with extensive descriptive scenes. That said, I found myself fully immersed in both David and the state of the nation as it moved from the 1960s to present day.

With thanks to #NetGalley and #PanMacmillan for allowing me to read and review.

Alan Hollinghurst has an exceptional talent and Our Evenings is a showcase for the power of his writing. It’s the story of Dave Win’s life, acutely observed from childhood over the next fifty years as we follow him from boarding school to his theatre career and late life reflections. Simply, it’s a tour de force which examines, often with subtlety, racism, sexuality, class divide and bigotry.

The main players are Dave and his mother, a seamstress in a small market town. There’s a claustrophobic and suspicious feel as Dave is mixed race so never quite fits in. He’s sponsored by a wealthy couple whose son, Giles, features throughout Dave’s life; Giles is a right wing politician and an unlikely friend. Dave is subject to bullying and other discriminations because of his colour. As a teenager he begins to understand and explore his sexuality which leads to further difficulties. This is a story which so accurately reflects parts of modern Britain. It’s about living in a society where superficially, prejudice is denied but in reality, that undercurrent is ever present and a minority are subjected to small cruelties almost daily.

I’ve enjoyed every page. Beautifully written, reflective and thought provoking. Another outstanding novel from one of the greatest writes of our generation.

Dave Win is a 13 year old boy who has won a scholarship to a local boarding school. The story opens when he goes to stay with the sponsors of his award and their son Giles, a bullying, envious boy who has made Dave’s life miserable at school. Their paths intertwine over the next 50 years, due in part to the kindness and support of Giles’s parents. Dave’s as a gifted actor who constantly struggles with racism, (he’s the product of a brief affair his mother had with a Burmese man when she worked in Rangoon), and Giles as an increasingly influential right wing politician. The following year he goes on holiday to North Devon with his mum Avril and her formidable friend Esme. At the hotel his intense feelings for other
young men comes to the fore and he discovers his mother also has her secrets!
But this book is so much more, It's an observation, often humorous, through Dave’s eyes of present day England particularly attitudes to race, sexuality & class. The tales of his theatre company and plays were fascinating as were his three love affairs especially the last at age 60 where he finds a precarious happiness.
The ending, although unexpected, was written in a beautiful contemplative way.
I’ve enjoyed many of Alan Hollinghurst’s works especially The Line of Beauty and The Stranger’s Child. This novel is quite different, still very good though.

Many thanks to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan for an ARC

This evocative study of the life of a dual heritage gay man from the 1960s onwards in Britain is just beautiful. Such depth of character and restrained subtlety.. This isn't a book of huge drama or action but is a subtle reflection on otherness and on ageing.

David is a scholarship schoolboy from a small community who is being raised by his white single mother, having never known his father from Burma. Now an actor, he reflects on the death of a pivotal figure in his life and on his own life.

The subject of racism and homophobia is tackled well with a catalogue of aggressions and microaggressions. The characters are so beautifully drawn, particularly David's mother, an extraordinary woman living a seemingly uneventful life.

I liked the use of the Brexiteer antagonist who contrast so well with David.

This is totally on form for the ever brilliant Alan Hollinghurst. I was utterly absorbed in this.

This is the life story of David Win. Half Burmese, half British, he grows up in a small, country market town in the care of his mother, a local seamstress. His progress through public school and Oxford and on into a career as an actor is charted against the thousand small indignities meted out to him because of the colour of his skin and because of his sexuality. This is a masterclass in novel writing. Hollinghurst takes what seems like the traditional novel form and subverts it into something far darker, more anxiety inducing and angry. Bigotry and the rise of the far right are never far from the surface and as the timeline speeds towards Brexit and Covid, things tip over into the disasters that were foretold in the school rooms and playing fields of David's youth.

Our Evenings follows Dave Win who goes to stay with the sponsors of his scholarship at a boarding school. Dave experiences their son Giles’ envy and violence. Over the next half a century Dave becomes a gifted actor but Giles becomes a politician.

This novel deals with a lot of topics and I was pleased with the commentary on race and sexuality as Dave is half Burmese and a gay man. This was written well but it just wasn’t my kind of novel. It was fine.

Exceptionally beautiful new novel by Alan Hollinghurst
Our Evenings is the life story of David Win, his family, friends and lovers. The characters are perfectly drawn and I was pulled into the story and didn’t want it to end

Our Evenings is beautifully written, with elegant prose and vivid character portrayals. Hollinghurst thoughtfully explores themes of race, class, and sexuality, weaving them into the narrative with subtlety. However, while the treatment of these themes is insightful, the overall narrative lacked the momentum to fully engage me. I found it a book to appreciate for its style and thematic depth, but occasionally wondered what it all added up to.

In any case, Alan Hollinghurst continues to demonstrate that he is a writer of great skill and beauty. Whatever my own quibbles with the narrative, Our Evenings is not to be missed.

4.5/5

ARC for review. To be published October 8, 2024.

Our Evenings has a lot about it that will be familiar to Hollinghurst fans. Its protagonist, David Win, is a mixed-race child of a single parent, from the lower middle classes (his mother runs a small dressmaking business) in rural Southern England. He is a scholar at a prestigious fee-paying boys’ school, the recipient of an exhibition awarded by the arts benefactor Mark Harlow. The novel’s early chapters detail events during David’s time at that school, including a weekend at the Harlows’ country home, and an adventurous school ‘challenge’ in which he is paired with the Harlows’ son Giles (who we know from the book’s flash-forward introduction is to become a notorious right-wing politician and Brexit architect). David makes his way in life, developing an interest in acting and generally doing reasonably (if unspectacularly) well, all the while contending with his points of difference.

Like most Hollinghurst protagonists, his class and sexuality set him apart, but here it is his half-Burmese heritage that attracts most attention. With limited knowledge of his father, and never having visited his father’s homeland, he has limited connection to that side of his heritage, but for many people that encounter him over the decades, it’s the first or only thing they see. Throughout the book, David is subject to slights and microagressions which he mostly takes as par for the course. Those who meet his white mother are constantly perplexed and occasionally angered by his presence, at school he ends up friends by default with the only other Asian boy in his year, despite them having little in common, and later in life he is fetishized by some of his white lovers, and in his acting career constantly mistaken for a more famous (but much shorter!) British-Chinese actor.

Unlike some of Hollinghurst’s best-known work, it has as its focus the events of recent years. This may not be apparent for much of the book, which begins in the 1960s and spends much of its time (as is customary for Hollinghurst) in other late twentieth century decades. But it is signposted with its recent-past introduction, and made very apparent in its later pages, which I won’t go into in too much detail as there be serious spoilers down that route. It’s safe to say though that the book shows in its later stages that one of its primary interests is an exploration of what has really changed over these decades when it comes to discrimination in Britain, particularly race-based discrimination. Brexit is there as a signifier of some of this, though its incporporation is subtle and impactful where it could easily have been heavy-handed.

Giles, the figure we hear discussed at the start of the book, ultimately plays a little less obviously significant a role than one might expect from that bit of seemingly obvious foreshadowing. As David himself observes, there are long periods of his life in which Giles plays no role at all, and their paths do not cross. When they do, they offer brief windows into how their lives have diverged, but nothing earth-shattering. What Giles does act as is a shadowy figure lurking in the background, representative of fairly unpleasant undercurrents in British society that may look like they’ve gone away, but are always lurking just below the surface, ready to reemerge at unpredictable and occasionally shocking moments.

Rather than the expected closure to the framing device opened at the start of the book, it is closed with an altogether different frame, and one which encourages a fresh reassessment of the moments that are presented in the book. Again, it’s not right to give too much away about this, but it’s definitely a book that you’ll want to pick up again to read in a fresh light following its conclusion. On a first read, I was somewhat intrigued by the rapid lurches between time periods represented by each chapter. Unlike in other ‘historical sweep’ novels, we’re given little in the way of information (such as dates and locations) as to where we have landed at the start of each section, which typically begins in media res at some point not necessarily obviously related to what came before. It’s only with the context of the novel’s conclusion that we start to make sense of why (and by whom) the particular fragments might have been chosen, and what they illustrate in terms of understanding the path leading to that conclusion.

I found this structural shiftiness to be a highlight of an already very enjoyable read. I had some initial doubts about Hollinghurst being the right person to write David Win’s story, given the central importance of race, but to my (white male) eyes he has handled a challenging perspective with significant success, with its narrative of difference handled with real insight and empathy. (It’s probably also the case that I am the wrong person to judge this, in which case I am happy to stand corrected). Beyond this, it’s all good. The book’s central characters (David, his mother and her partner, and David’s various lovers) are typically three dimensional, vulnerable and relatable. Its interactions with history are lightly handled and occasionally amusing (such as the brief recurrence of Mrs. Thatcher, in rather less dramatic a context than her scene-stealing cameo in The Line of Beauty). Its musings on life and love are tender and beautiful. But it’s the novel’s unexpected ending that I think elevates it to another level in terms its relevance to our modern world.

(9/10)

Our Evenings is a beautifully written novel about David Win - a gay actor of English and Burmese heritage. We are introduced to David as a teenager and follow him throughout his life learning of his career path, friends, lovers and relationships as well as the racism and homophobia he regularly endures, which causes him to question his place in the world.

The characters in Our Evenings are beautifully portrayed - flawed, nuanced and believable. I particularly loved David's relationship with his mother and her partner and how this developed throughout the story. Whilst slow paced at times, Our Evenings is heartfelt and moving right up until a shocking ending that left me utterly shocked.

Recommended - a novel that will stay with me for a long time.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan, Picador and NetGalley for the ARC.

The story of David Win's life, family and loves shows Hollinghurst at his very best, as you follow a young Dave from his humble beginnings as the mixed-race son of a single mother to his acting successes and then tragic end in a very modern situation.

Everything is so detailed and believable, the empathy and understanding of so many different characters in their fallible detail, all builds up a convincing and masterful picture of British life from the 1950s to the present day.

It's a not uncommon story of a young boy lifted by his education and connections, but you'll be sad to see the end of Dave when you're done, he'll stay in your thoughts long after you finish reading.

You feel that you know David Win well as the author skillfully describes his life from scholarship days, through his varied acting career and his love life. The obnoxious son of David's scholarship sponsor appears throughout highlighting the differences between their lives.

Listen, I'm usually all into experimental literature and unusual aesthetic decisions, but this, this is traditional storytelling at its very best, an absorbing, sweeping epic about race, class, and sex spanning the last ca. 75 years in the UK, and I just could not put it down. Hollinghurst tells the life story of David Win, born in 1948, whom we first meet as a fourteen-year-old boarder at Bampton school where he is on a scholarship sponsored by the wealthy Hadlow family, known to be avid supporters of the arts. David, who never met his father, is half Burmese and gay, growing up with a single mother who works as a seamstress and causes even more scandal by sharing her life with a woman. He goes on to attend Oxford and then becomes an actor, all through his life having to fight not only racism, but, as a gay man, also homophobia. While David is making his way in the arts, Giles Hadlow, the son of the Hadlow family who is just three months younger than him, makes it big as a Tory MP, a Minister and then a Brexiteer: While David pushes forward, he is the force that pushes backwards.

It is masterful how Hollinghurst manages to convey how David is shaped by the people he meets and his experiences throughout his life, not only his own family and the Hadlows, but also his friends and colleagues. People and instances re-appear thoughout the text, showing David's growth and changing political circumstances - in the background, this is also a story about British politics, especially British racism, from colonialism (David's mother worked for Major General Hubert Rance in Burma, which became independent the year of our protagonist's birth) to social movements and experimental theater (where David is involved) that aimed to overcome everyday racism and professional limitations of non-white artists up to xenophobia-driven Brexit and, finally, the rise of anti-Asian hate crime during COVID. It's of course also a story about a young man growing into his sexuality and experiencing changing societal attitudes towards queer people.

All these themes are carried by the life-like, touching rendering of David, a flawed, deeply human individual chasing happiness. Throughout the text, Hollinghurst adds theater references to numerous plays and the roles David plays, and these references go way beyond pointing towards the struggles of an actor who can't pass as white in the world of British theater: They are interwoven with the story, and good luck to the people writing theses about the complex net of meaning behind this composition (there are also circular references, like the fact that Hollinghurst himself translated Racine's "Bajazet", in which David performs). Additionally, there are hints to other artworks, most notably Burmese fashion, paintings like "The Messenger, a Tragic Gesture", music like "On an Overgrown Path" (which contains the movement "Our Evenings") and poetry like "Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves" (which contains the lines "Óur évening is over us; óur night ' whélms, whélms, ánd will end us.").

The title also points to actual evenings in the novel, time David spends with people that are important to him. The whole story is told in such a psychologically plausible and nuanced way (the dependency of the arts on the people they criticize! the brutality of love! complex family dynamics! etc.), plus there is a turn at the end that I can't give away which is rather brilliant. I am in awe of this achievement and am now eagerly waiting for Hollinghurst to extend his collection of literary prizes.

"Our Evenings" by Alan Hollinghurst is bound to be up for some awards. Following David Win from his time at private school, through Oxford university, we drop in at various points throughout his acting careers and his love life. I loved his mother Avril and her partner Esme. I also loved Mark and Cara Hadlow who provided stability for David when funds were short or he needed to talk to someone who cared about the arts. It does feel like a long book but it is so worth the read.

Enjoyable but the author's obsession and clear reverence for class and snobbery gets tiresome after a bit. That said, an entertaining read.

I loved this book! Many thanks to @netgalley and @Panmacmillan for the advance copy in return for my honest review.

This was a real treat. Hollinghurst is a consummate storyteller and his latest publication due out in October is no exception. It tells the story of David Win, who is half Burmese, half English, spanning his teenage years to his seventies. David is a clever child and attends private school, and Oxford. He is financially supported by the benevolence of Cara and Mark Hadlow, who continue to play a seminal role throughout his life. Their son, Giles, is the same age as David and we see his development from a bullying teenager to a right wing Brexiteer and Tory minister.

Hollinghurst tracks David’s life, his relationship with his mother Avril, and how David always feels like an outsider. Hollinghutst gently tackles issues such as racism and homophobia in this gem of a book. If you liked The Line of Beauty, you ll love this. 5 stars from me!

This book opens with Dave Win in his later years meeting up with the wife of a man who was instrumental in him getting a scholarship to a private education early in his life. The story then rolls back to that school era and his life then. From here the story takes us through Dave's life. It is not told in any complete way but comes via vignettes of significant parts and experiences. It is the story of his personal life in the main though he is an actor so parts do relate to plays and the like. At the start he realises he is drawn to men rather than women. He is half Burmese as a result of a brief relationship his mother had immediately after the war. However his father remained in Burma while his mother returned to England.

The story walks through some incidents and events in Dave's life. Among this, there are encounters with men some satisfactory and some not. However many of the events are simply things that happened in his life. Some are or appear quite small at the time but possibly have greater significance later. Throughout this there are people who are constants in his life. Mark and Cara Hadlow are important; they are the people who were involved with his scholarship and remain involved with him on and off through most of the story. Their son, Giles, is the same age as him and bullied him at school. He too is part of the story though remains a bully of sorts throughout.

Special mention has to go to Avril who is his mother. I loved the ongoing relationship between them. Almost as important is the remarkable Esme Croft who is Avril's friend and business partner. They are both integral to his life, particularly at times. This is a book where there is a feel of nothing much happening and simply a life being lived. However as you gradually gather a greater picture of Dave's life you realise that he has been shaped in ways by all these events.

I'm not Dave's age however there are echoes of some similarities in my life. I enjoyed Dave as a character. The book is gently if quite sharply political at times as Dave is. Equally it is somewhat subversive as well as being gentle, sad and very interesting on occasion. It also feels lightly affectionate too. I found the story and the characters genuinely believable and "ordinary" in the best sense of the word. I kept having to remind myself that this is not a biography as it felt so like one to me. I really liked the way that the tone changes as Dave ages too.

I'd not read anything by this author prior to this however the writing and characters here make me quite sure I will read more from Alan Hollinghurst in the future.

Alan Hollinghurst's latest novel, Our Evenings, often put me in mind of his 2004 Booker Prize winner, The Line of Beauty. That novel, one of my favourites of the 21st Century so far, is a hard novel to be compared to, even for its author. And I have to say that I found Our Evenings held its own. I found the life story of David Win very engaging... the structure of the novel is very simple chronology of a life, but with a writer of Hollinghurst's skill at the helm it never once dragged. A very fine novel indeed.

Alan Hollinghurst is the consummate storyteller; for over a quarter of a century he has written some of the most beautifully powerful and moving novels- Our Evenings is another classic.

Our Evenings- those special times at the end of a day when we spend times with those we love

This is the story of Dave Win- his life, his loves, his successes and challenges- covering the period from his teens up until his seventies. The story takes us through key moments in his life and his encounters with key individuals who figured briefly in his world or over many years.

From life in public school through a scholarship, his formative years at Oxford and through his career on stage and screen, Dave Win bares his soul and observations about society - subtly referencing the racism across 'class divides' and the English landscape over the decades, connecting us intimately with his mother and her partner ( the unspoken relationship of two women in a small community) and the ever present bond with Mark and Cara , the wealthy couple, who supported his steps into education and remained friends through his career.

Alan Hollinghurst has created a very poignant and at times heart-rending tale of survival in a world where Dave Win never fully is accepted or fits in. With a nod to right wing politics and the pretension of a wealthy elite, he cuts certain characters down to size especially the odious Giles( son of Mark and Cara) who is an ever present figure through his rise in national politics.

The first chapter or so felt as though this was to be novel about the rivalry between the class divide and the violence and abuse of life in a public school but the story panned more widely and broadened into a truly exquisite read about the wider obstacles and triumphs encountered by Dave Win. The chapters exploring the love between Dave and his mother, Avril, are charmingly tender; the recollections of life in the theatre and daily life are wonderful.

This is a brilliant novel -the creation of Dave Win is a literary gem- a story that will be savoured for a long time.

Our Evenings is Alan Hollinghurst's new novel, following the life of a gay, biracial actor as the twentieth century becomes the twenty first. Dave Win has an English mother and a Burmese father he doesn't know, and his scholarship to a minor public school means he is drawn into the world of the family who endow that scholarship, including Giles, the son who is at the same school as him. The novel follows his life as he grows up, becoming an actor, having love affairs, and watching Giles' ascent into politics, all whilst dealing with being treated as other by people he meets.

Having read most of Hollinghurst's novels, I wanted to read this one and see how his work might meet the present day. As Our Evenings spans over fifty years, it isn't just about the modern moment, but it does have some quite recent elements by the end that can seem a bit of a surprise when the rest of the book feels so similar to his other books like The Line of Beauty. I wasn't sure about the inclusion of a character who is built up to eventually be a Brexit minister, and Giles never really feels like a real character, but I can see why the progression of the rich counterpart to the protagonist would be to have him end up an MP who is pro-Brexit. Other characters are more engaging, particularly Dave's mother who finds love when Dave is in his teens and then you get to see snippets of her life through Dave's eyes.

As the book is positioned as a memoir written by Dave, it's all about his framing and what he sees, but with jumps in time that stop it being too slow, always moving forward to the next thing. The ending is more of a shock, coming up to nearly the present day and with a twist that I wasn't expecting, and it moves the novel away from the predictable unfolding of Dave's sometimes disappointing, sometimes tender life into something that acknowledges the discrimination lurking under many events in Dave's life.

Our Evenings is a time-spanning novel that works as a character study, similar in vein to other of Hollinghurst's novels, but with a different edge that focuses on otherness and its impacts—positive and negative—on people's lives. Fans of his other novels will probably also like this one, though it feels almost shocking that his characters could reach the 2020s and deal with that world.