Our Evenings
A Novel
Checking Availibility...Description
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker o The Winnipeg Free Press o The Guardian o TIME o The Irish Times o Kirkus Reviews o Publishers Weekly o Slate o A New York Times Notable Book of 2024 o From the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, a piercing novel that envisions modern England through the lens of one man's acutely observed and often unnerving experience, as he struggles with class and race, art and sexuality, love and violence.
"The finest novel yet from one of the great writers of our time." --The Guardian
Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I'd lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.
Dave Win, the son of a British dressmaker and a Burmese man he's never met, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities lie before Dave, even as he is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates, above all that of Giles Hadlow, whose worldly parents sponsored the scholarship and who find in Dave someone they can more easily nurture than their brutish son.
Our Evenings follows Dave from the 1960s on--through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.
Moving in and out of Dave's orbit are the Hadlows. Estranged from his parents, who remain close to Dave, Giles directs his privilege into a career as a powerful right-wing politician, whose reactionary vision for England pokes perilous holes in Dave's stability. And as the novel accelerates towards the present day, the two men's lives and values will finally collide in a cruel shock of violence.
This is "one of our most gifted writers" (The Boston Globe) sweeping readers from our past to our present through the beauty, pain, and joy of one deeply observed life.
About this Author
ALAN HOLLINGHURST is the author of six previous novels, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star, The Spell, The Line of Beauty (winner of the Booker Prize), The Stranger's Child, and The Sparsholt Affair. He lives in London.
Reviews
One of The New York Times' Notable Books of 2024
One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction Books of 2024
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
One of The Guardian's Best Fiction Books of 2024
One of Time's Best Novels of 2024
One of The Irish Times' Best Books of 2024
One of Slate's 10 Best Books of 2024
"Our Evenings is that rare bird: a muscular work of ideas and an engrossing tale of one man's personal odyssey as he grows up, framed in exquisite language." --The New York Times Book Review
"A novel about acceptance: of time's passage, of life's limitations, of the small victories that make existence meaningful." --The Guardian
"It's time for American readers to know the genius of Alan Hollinghurst . . . Britain's finest prose stylist. . . . Extraordinary . . . gorgeous." --The Washington Post
"[Hollinghurst is] still our most elegant living writer. . . . [His] allegiance to sheer beauty balances the tartness of his observations of class. . . . [A] lovely, elegiac consideration of how people find happiness in the margins and crannies of the mainstream, and how fragile that joy can be." --Slate
"Hollinghurst's cultural range--as his new novel, Our Evenings, again confirms--is enormous." --The Atlantic
"[Hollinghurst's] most stately production yet, the measured, deliberate work of an experienced artist who refuses to be rushed. Vaulty and voluminous, Our Evenings is dense with images, detail, and luscious description." --Los Angeles Review of Books
"Perhaps his best yet. . . If you've never read [Hollinghurst] and enjoy literary fiction, compelling characters and a panorama of British history, Our Evenings is for you." --Parade
"[Our Evenings is] 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
"[Our Evenings is] a meditation on growing old, the mutability of relationships, and the fragility of social progress, framed by the world-on-fire mood of the present." --Vulture
"The book contains moments of extraordinary beauty and set pieces as powerful as anything Hollinghurst has written." --The New Yorker
"[Hollinghurst is] infinitely sensitive to landscapes, colours, textures, able to convey the most delicate of sensations and emotions." --The Telegraph
"[Our Evenings] has brought me more pleasure than any other book this year. . . . But Hollinghurst's richly textured sentences are engrossing, capturing as they can the subtlest social undercurrent. Few British novelists reawaken the senses quite so intensely." --The Times
"Reading [Hollinghurst's] prose is like sinking into a bath of the perfect temperature, with his exquisite use of language and extraordinary powers of description." --Julia Kelly, The Irish Times
"A standing ovation for Our Evenings!" --Richard E. Grant, actor and star of Withnail and I and Saltburn
"Our Evenings is marked by a sharp eye, a tender sensibility, and an unflagging wit. I never wanted it to end." --Emma Donoghue, author of The Pull of the Stars and Room
"This sublime novel--classic Hollinghurst in everything but point of view--could not be timelier." --Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk
"Extraordinary. . . Every aspect is flawless: complex, multidimensional characters, subtle treatment of emotions, beautiful writing, a vividly realized theatrical setting, and more." --Booklist (starred review)
"Hollinghurst shows off his singular ability to bring readers inside the world of a character." --Town & Country
"Hollinghurst proves once more to be a master of emotive prose. [Our Evenings is] a tour de force." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Hollinghurst continues to amaze and delight." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Exquisitely fashioned . . . a masterful accomplishment." --BookPage (starred review)
"Hollinghurst has created a masterwork of literary fiction in his life-spanning tale of David Win, a biracial gay actor and writer. Elegantly navigating class and race, art and sexuality, love and violence, Our Evenings is a moving, beautiful and stunning evocation of modern Britain." --Foyles (UK)
"From the opening page, there is the assurance of being in good hands with [Our Evenings], . . . Alan Hollinghurst [transports the reader] with exceptional elan, the fluency and understated confidence of his writing making his prose flow like music." --The Herald
"Our Evenings is a marvel." --The Economist
"Suffused with golden light alluded to in its title, Our Evenings is melancholy and ravishing." --Slate
If the product is in stock at the store nearest you, we suggest you call ahead to have it set aside for you, or you may place an order online and choose in-store pickup.
