OUR EVENINGS

The fictional memoir of a gay biracial British actor of rare intelligence and elegance, over a half decade of social change.

Hollinghurst's seventh novel features a narrator who, like his creator, is about 70: David Win—the dark-skinned son of a British woman and a man she met while working as a typist in Burma after World War II—was raised by his mother on her own in provincial England. The story opens with a fairly recent event: the death of Mark Hadlow, a mentor whose family offered a scholarship that allowed David to attend an elite prep school from the age of 13 in the early 1960s. Along with the challenges he faced there due to his race and class, he was often targeted by Hadlow's son Giles, a bully who we know has grown up to be a right-wing member of parliament in the era of Brexit, even now "tearing up our future and our hopes." The first half of the book relies on what Win calls his "famous memory" to unfold the story of his adolescence—one brilliant section is set during a seaside holiday when his head whips back and forth between a good-looking Italian waiter, the men on the beach in their bathing suits, and his dressmaker mother and her customer Mrs. Croft, funder of this vacation, now revealed to be much more than a friend. The expansive architecture of this book fluidly slips you from one phase of David's life to the next, examining the ups and downs of his acting career and his love affairs—and then suddenly there's an ending you will likely find yourself reading several times so you can fully take in its subtlety, power, and emotion.

Hollinghurst continues to amaze and delight, hitting both the most delicate grace notes and portentous chords perfectly.