It’s been seven years since we were last gifted a new work by Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker winner frequently described as the foremost English prose stylist of his generation. So the publication of his latest, seventh, novel is rightly a significant literary event and cause of celebration. But such breathless, heady, eager expectation is beautifully at odds with the abiding quietude and mellowness of Our Evenings .
Written in sentences that are often arch and always effortless, it’s a remarkable, richly humane novel. Perhaps reminiscent of John Williams’ posthumous word-of-mouth hit Stoner , it records a seemingly ordinary life. In this case, it’s that of British Burmese actor David Win.
Broadly, the narrative – in the form of a kind of memoir – moves from Win’s childhood in 60s Berkshire to his marriage to academic Richard Roughsedge in present day London. The idea of ordinariness, though, is something Hollinghurst complicates throughout. As a younger character, David certainly attempts to present as ordinary to assimilate into surroundings; to be a hushed background presence even.
He has a preternatural nous for reading a room – at home or elsewhere – and performing accordingly. It’s a skill wonderfully and engagingly showcased in the opening chapters, when David, a scholarship boy, is invited to the home of his benefactors – and tentatively but successfully navigates the unspoken mores of a Country House weekend. For David, this vast pile is all “g.