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Our Evenings

The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller from a Booker Prize-winning Author

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Our Evenings

By: Alan Hollinghurst
Narrated by: Prasanna Puwanarajah
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Summary

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

'I must confess my devotion immediately: I read every word this man writes. I wait for every new novel and the wait has been worth it: this is gorgeous. I simply love the way this man writes' – Russell T. Davies, writer and creator of It's A Sin

'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

Featured on Radio 4's 'Book at Bedtime'


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.

Art & Literature Authors Coming of Age Family Life Genre Fiction LGBTQIA+ Creators Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction England Funny Inspiring Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

The best novel that’s been written about contemporary Britain in the past ten years. It’s funny but desperately moving too
The finest novel yet from one of the great writers of our time
A triumph . . . With his seventh novel, Our Evenings, the Booker-winning writer proves that his talents as a keen noticer of the world have only deepened . . . Gems of observation and insight on every page
Our Evenings is a truly astonishing novel, by turns delicate and ferocious, radical in the way it explores questions of race, class, sexuality and origins in a genteel English Home Counties setting. It is the story of a country undergoing great change, even if its people aren’t aware of it—the novel moves through time so beautifully that I felt such a sense of loss at the end (Tash Aw)
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)
A deeply moving novel, sensitive and hilarious in equal measure. A marvel I would recommend to anyone (Paterson Joseph, actor and star of Peep Show and Noughts and Crosses)
This sublime novel – classic Hollinghurst in everything but point of view – could not be timelier (Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk )
Hollinghurst proves once more to be a master of emotive prose. It’s a tour de force
Luxuriously immersive, subtle and elegiac, [Our Evenings] traces the arc of a life to paint a picture of modern Britain and is shot through with love, longing and delicious comedy
Moments of extraordinary beauty and set pieces as powerful as anything Hollinghurst has written
A moving novel, written with beautiful poise and a wonderful grasp of life’s detail that singles Hollinghurst’s voice out. He writes of male concerns and love with true subtlety and feeling
Our Evenings cements Alan Hollinghurst as one of Britain’s best novelists . . . Written in sentences that are often arch and always effortless, it’s a remarkable, richly humane novel
Our Evenings is a work of such expansive, affecting brilliance and is a must for the Booker Prize next year . . . There is richness aplenty on these pages: acute social comedy, potent set pieces, some mesmerisingly beautiful distillations of atmosphere and emotion. It’s all woven masterfully into an intimate first-person meditation on modern England . . . A work of such expansive, affecting brilliance
All stars
Most relevant
This is a really wonderful reading (by Prasanna Puwanajarah) of a great book.

David Win, a biracial, fatherless, working class scholarship boy, is thoroughly rooted in his white and privately educated world, and thoughtfully narrates the story of his long life through reflective vignette.

It sounds slight, but this is such a thoughtful, graceful, kind hearted wander through time. Important social and political events are shown rather than told, and this techniqueof showing how events effect the individual is quietly effective because of this personal approach.

Without caricature, his wonderfully heroic and stoic mum Avril, and abusive villain Giles add drama, but ultimately this is a thoughtful book that reflects on big themes from the perspective of old age.

A wonderful performance of a great book

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I don't read very much queer 'literary fiction'. Those I have, I've mostly enjoyed. This, though, was different.

Alan Hollinghurst is a Booker Prize-winning author who's lauded and lionised. A new novel from him is something of an event. I read the description, ummed and aahed, then finally bit the bullet. It's a long read - 16 and a half hours - and for that, I want to feel engaged. Was I? No.

Hollinghurst's writing style borders on perfect: word choice, story flow, descriptions all rise up off the page to paint their pictures. That was probably what kept me going. The narrative content didn't.

Really, I should've read the blurb more carefully. I'm not a fan of slow, decades-spanning tales, so I guess I started on the wrong foot. The novel follows the life of Dave Win, who's half-Burmese, as he navigates school, college, discovering himself, and carving out a career in the theatre. Maybe it's because I haven't followed anything like the same path, but I didn't really relate. The amount of time spent while Win was at school in the 1960s and early 70s bored me rigid. Part of the problem was a lack of variety in tone. Every incident and thought and reflection hovered around the same pitch. There were no real highs or lows; no joy or hot, vivid anger.

In the end, I 'flicked' through the last 3 hours or so, desperate to finish but also not to waste that amount of time on reading something unrewarding. Oh well, not one for the reread pile.

Not for me

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Very enjoyable and really sensitively told, both in the story itself and the narrator (who was excellent).

A gorgeous story.

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A masterpiece of social history, fascinating characters and of life and love. Spellbinding writing that haunts the mind.

Brilliant and moving

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Such an intimate, warm novel read with intimacy and warmth. Don’t miss it. Full of echoes of life crossing into 21st century England, and moments of writing of such meaning and depth you have to listen again, for the sheer pleasure of the author’s skill.

Outstanding narration of a superb novel

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