• Source: Our Evenings

      • Our Evenings is a 2024 novel by Alan Hollinghurst.


      Plot summary


      Dave Win is a middle-aged actor. After his benefactor Mark Hadlow dies, Dave visits Cara, his elderly widow.
      Mark's father had endowed a scholarship which paid for Dave to attend Bampton School, where he is a year ahead for his age. Dave visits the Hadlow household at Woolpeck, a farm owned by Cara's brother Peter. Dave is bullied by the Hadlows' violent son Giles. Dave shows some acting talent, rehearsing a scene with Mark's mother Elise, a famous French actress.
      Dave is half Burmese, and lives with his mother, Avril, in Berkshire. His mother is a seamstress, and meets Esme Croft, a rich client. The three of them go on holiday to Devon.
      The book's title is a reference to the first movement of On an Overgrown Path by Leoš Janáček, and the evenings Dave spends listening to records with one of the Bampton schoolmasters.
      After Dave finishes school, the Wins move in with Esme, who had previously gone into business with Avril as cover for their Boston marriage. Uncle Brian, who has always refused to acknowledge Dave, disowns Avril.
      Dave attends the University of Oxford, where he has an unrequited crush on Nick. He receives a positive review in The Times for playing Mosca in Volpone, but runs away from taking his final exam. Back home, Dave comes out to Avril and Esme.
      Dave joins a successful touring theatre company, again funded by the Hadlows. He begins a relationship with Chris, but breaks it off to live with Hector, an actor, until Hector moves to Canada for a role.
      At a literary festival, Dave meets Richard; they marry. Giles, now a Conservative MP, is made Minister for the Arts.
      The novel closes with a succession of deaths: Esme, Avril, Mark, and finally Dave, after he is attacked in the street by a stranger. Richard edits his memoirs.


      Reception


      A reviewer in The Guardian called it "the finest novel yet from one of the great writers of our time." A reviewer in the Sunday Times wrote "at the sentence level, Hollinghurst remains an English stylist without obvious living equal."
      Simon Schama, reviewing the book for the Financial Times, wrote "I'm not sure any living writer is quite as good as taking you there so immersively that you take in the feel of things, along with the play of all the other senses", however "In the end Our Evenings is a page turner but in a dutiful rather than a compulsive way. A succession of memorial services close the arc of the story but whomever the eulogies are for, when you close the book, you're not going to miss them that much." A reviewer in the New Statesman wrote "Hollinghurst's main character, Dave Win, is one of those you panic over in the final pages knowing you don't have much time left together."
      A reviewer in The Spectator described the plot as "one of tedious familiarity... a turgid composite of his previous works."


      Notes




      References

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