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.

Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties