Francesca Peacock

Familiar scenarios: Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst, reviewed

Public school crushes, adolescent freedoms at Oxford, first jobs and homosexual affairs in London – Hollinghurst’s latest novel seems like a reworking of all his previous books

issue 12 October 2024

There’s a certain pattern to an Alan Hollinghurst novel. A young gay man goes to Oxford. He’s middle class and riddled with suburban self-consciousness – a kind of complicated awareness of his non-posh failings and resulting subtle superiority. He meets another young man – possibly gay – who is posh.

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