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Our Evenings

By: Alan Hollinghurst
Narrated by: Prasanna Puwanarajah
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Summary

'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

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.

©2024 Alan Hollinghurst (P)2024 Macmillan Publishers International Limited
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Critic reviews

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 )

What listeners say about Our Evenings

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  • Overall
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Achingly beautiful as always

I’m still not 100% convinced that the author is the right person to tell the story of a biracial protagonist. However, the writing is so sublime and engaging that this feels like a very petty point to make. I’m sure it would be a lot less petty where I am person of colour reading this. I’m also confused by the marketing of the book. It’s pitched as a story of two individuals interconnecting lives. But Giles is merely a ghost in the proceedings. David on the other hand is a richly drawn, hugely likable character. I wasn’t as moved as I possibly should’ve been towards the end as I felt quite a substantial amount of historical events were given scant attention. However, the writing is so good at times that I genuinely feel I could’ve listened to 100 hours more of this story.

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Episodic journey through the life of a typical Hollinghurst protagonist

A bit disappointed - writing and narration excellent but some episodes worked better than mothers - many scenarios over long and repetitive. No
Surprises - feel
Like I’ve read it before.

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Epic

Brilliant descriptions of the experiences of life. Fascinating characters and a clever ending. Highly recommended.

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Magnificent

Wonderful, delicate narration of exquisite prose. The writing is slow,, detailed observation of a life unfolding across time. Poignant and profound.

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Public school life …

Loved it all. Hollinghurst is contemporary to me so lots of his writing reflects my life- starting from the YMCA pool portrayed in The swimming Pool Library. The detailed description of many things in Our Evenings may result in a slow story for some but for me it provides the richness of British social history of the past 60 years. Brilliant and extremely well narrated by Prasanna Puwanarajah.

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Perfect - makes you despair for England

Such an elegant, delicate, amazing book, just like his main character. Made me laugh out loud, made me angry and made me sobbing.

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