Our Evenings
by Alan Hollinghurst
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Pub Date 3 Oct 2024 | Archive Date 3 Oct 2024
Pan Macmillan | Picador
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Description
A ‘Book of the Year’ for The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, Daily Express, The Spectator, The Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and the I
Featured on Radio 4's 'Book at Bedtime'
'The best novel that’s been written about contemporary Britain in the past ten years. It’s funny but desperately moving too' – The Sunday Times
Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty, brings us a dark, luminous and wickedly funny portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from one of the finest writers of our age.
Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school. This weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to their son Giles’ envy and violence.
As their lives unfold over the next half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically: Dave, a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.
Our Evenings is the intimate and touching story of Dave Win’s 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 with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security.
Our Evenings entered the Sunday Times Fiction Hardback chart at #9 w/b 07-10-24.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781447208235 |
| PRICE | £22.00 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 448 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Stephen R, Educator
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.
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