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Alan Hollinghurst

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

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November 2024, no. 470
Tim Byrne reviews ‘Our Evenings’ by Alan Hollinghurst

There must be something in the post-Brexit air encouraging British novelists to take the long view. Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings joins recent doorstopper works – from Ian McEwan’s Lessons (2022) to Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road (2024) – that explore postwar Englishness from a standpoint of jaded retrospection. While they function as a kind of summation or reinforcement of their authors’ talents, they also offer a stinging critique of the nation’s propensities and historical prejudices. It is even possible to discern in the margins a note of contrition, an acknowledgment of the perspectives these writers have overlooked or neglected until now.

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The Stranger’s Child  by Alan Hollinghurst

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July–August 2011, no. 333

Weeks before its release, the Man Booker tipsters are laying short odds on Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel, the successor to his 2004 winner, The Line of Beauty. Booker cynics might agree that the great British literary race has in some seasons had more in common with pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than the Derby, but here is surely a promising contender for 2011’s glittering prize. Wher ...