Our Evenings, Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst’s latest novel, Our Evenings, takes a look at the tides of social change in modern Britain through the eyes of an aging actor reflecting on his life. The story centres on David Win, an Anglo-Burmese man, whose scholarship-funded private education leads him into the “chaos of privilege and prejudice” at Oxford University and the London theatre scene.
Unsurprisingly for a novel sitting at just under 500 pages, there’s much to be drawn from David’s life story. It begins when he is a teenager and spans six decades of his life, touching on themes of race, class, gay liberation at the end of the 20th century, as well as the more recent impact of Brexit and the pandemic. These elements of social commentary are navigated through David’s relationships, which remain the driving force behind the narrative.
There’s David’s close relationship to the Hadlow family, the wealthy, arts-loving benefactors of his place at a local boarding school, who invite him for a weekend at their family estate and nurture his love for theatre in the opening chapters of the novel. Their son, Giles, is David’s contemporary and is depicted as a bully during their schoolboy years who eventually becomes a prominent Tory politician and staunch Brexiteer. There’s also the men and love affairs that weave in and out of David’s life, recounted with the thrill and tentativeness of the new freedoms afforded to gay men after decriminalisation in England, while still exposing evident undercurrents of homophobia at the time. The most central and constant relationship throughout Our Evenings though is that of David and his single mother, Avril. Having never met his Burmese father, David’s enduring love for his mother and the many roles she plays in shaping him is palpable. Theirs is a tender and surprising tale about queerness, self-acceptance and how to create a meaningful family life outside of convention.
Our Evenings is both a sweeping and expansive state-of-the-nation novel, but it’s one that builds quietly and doesn’t rush the intimacy of the small, detailed moments at its core. The effect is a book that requests your time while giving no promise of a page-turning plot. Hollinghurst, instead, gifts us with the enjoyment of his exquisite prose and vivid characterisation; once I relented to the pace that was being asked of me, I let myself sink into his world and soak there.
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