Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hollinghurst’s latest novel, Our Evenings, has many of the trappings those familiar with his novels might expect: a gay protagonist navigating an aristocratic world he’s not a part of; ellipsis-heavy dialogue; high art and culture. Here, we follow Dave Win, the son of a Burmese man who he never knew and a white British mother, forever an outsider in his conservative village, who receives a scholarship to a local boarding school. The scholarship’s sponsors, left-wing aristocrats Cara and Mark Hadlow, take an interest in Dave, but he despises their son Giles, who becomes a lifelong, if peripheral, adversary. From the framing of the novel, we know that Dave has become a semi-successful theater actor by late middle age and that Giles becomes a politician who oversees the Brexit campaign. But most of the novel lingers on Dave’s youth, beginning in the early 1960s when he is in his first year at the boarding school, through his time at Oxford (that’s another Hollinghurst trademark) and finally into adulthood. His teenage years are formative, as he explores his sexuality, navigates an unusual but tender relationship with his mother, and comes up against the limitations of race and class in post-war England.

But most of the novel lingers on Dave’s youth, beginning in the early 1960s when he is in his first year at the boarding school, through his time at Oxford (that’s another Hollinghurst trademark) and finally into adulthood.

It’s probably clear that I am something of a Hollinghurst aficionada; indeed, I have read all of his novels, and, while each is distinct, there are certain motifs he returns to again and again. For all of the classic Hollinghurst flourishes, however, Our Evenings feels like a departure in several ways, primarily that its protagonist is consistently sympathetic. I’ve loved Hollinghurst’s hedonistic, amoral queer characters in the past (particularly Nick Guest, the protagonist of his Booker-winning masterpiece The Line of Beauty), but he does write this more tender tale brilliantly. Whereas most of his novels focus exclusively on gay men, we also get a glimpse at a love story between two women, which adds emotional depth to the novel. And, while many of his novels juxtapose young and old gay men, the focus on a protagonist in his sixties looking back on his youth feels distinct, particularly as the novel is written from Hollinghurst’s own vantage point as a man who has recently entered his seventies. Having read so much Hollinghurst already, I enjoyed both the sense of the familiar and the new approaches here. In particular, it’s nice to see more of his emotional range in depicting Dave’s relationships with his mother, Cara, Hadlow, and his partner Richard.

And, while many of his novels juxtapose young and old gay men, the focus on a protagonist in his sixties looking back on his youth feels distinct, particularly as the novel is written from Hollinghurst’s own vantage point as a man who has recently entered his seventies. Having read so much Hollinghurst already, I enjoyed both the sense of the familiar and the new approaches here.

Indeed, this is a quiet novel, not flashy in the least, but Hollinghurst’s confident prose and detailed character work carry it. It isn’t plot-heavy – it’s really a series of vignettes about Dave’s life, some of which would make excellent short stories – and is instead an exploration of sexuality, race, and class in a rapidly changing Britain through the lens of one character. As in The Line of Beauty, there is a sense of empire in decline: Dave was born in 1948, the year Burma achieved independence from Britain, and therefore obviously represents the crumbling of the British empire. Though he’s never even been to Burma, his youth is marked by constant messages that he does not really belong: blatant stares, questions about his origins, and struggles to be cast in anything but stereotypical theater roles. Though attitudes liberalize throughout his life, the resurgence of xenophobia during the Brexit campaign represents a throughline, the perpetual status of racial other that will always linger, despite Dave’s success and friendship with members of the aristocracy.

Though the novel is subtle, it does come to an astonishing climax – another classic Hollinghurst feature. Again, I am reminded of The Line of Beauty, which ends rather abruptly and with an ambiguous but evocative gesture. Of course I will not spoil Our Evenings, but the ending is certainly impactful, and it engages the themes of the novel brilliantly – the interplay between class, race, and colonialism in the UK; the antagonism between Giles and Dave as their politics diverge; what it means to be British. Though I don’t think anything will usurp The Line of Beauty as my favourite Hollinghurst novel, I enjoyed wandering through Dave’s life, and I think this will appeal to a broader audience than his previous works. Twenty years after his Booker win, Hollinghurst is still a capable and accomplished novelist who documents the British class system and twentieth-century gay life with acerbic insight.

…the ending is certainly impactful, and it engages the themes of the novel brilliantly – the interplay between class, race, and colonialism in the UK; the antagonism between Giles and Dave as their politics diverge; what it means to be British.

Alan Hollinghurst is the author of the novels The Swimming-Pool Library; The Folding Star; The Spell; The Line of Beauty, winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and The Stranger’s Child. He has also received the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He lives in London.

Publisher: Random House (October 20, 2024)
Paperback 6″ x 9″ | 496 pages
ISBN: 9780593243060

Clementine Oberst

Clementine Oberst is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in television studies. Born and raised in Toronto, she has lived in Montreal and Glasgow and now calls Hamilton home. When she isn't writing her dissertation, Clementine can be found knitting, trying to cultivate a green thumb, and playing with her cats. She loves nothing more than losing herself in a good book. You can connect with her on Instagram @clementinereads.