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Our Evenings: A Novel Audiobook
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From the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, “an engrossing tale of one man’s personal odyssey as he grows up, framed in exquisite language” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice)
“The finest novel yet from one of the great writers of our time.”—The Guardian
SHORTLISTED FOR A LAMMY AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Town & Country, Slate, Good Housekeeping, Financial Times, The Economist, Chicago Public Library, Parade, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews
Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.
Dave Win, the son of a Burmese man he’s never met and a British dressmaker, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates.
Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel follows Dave from the 1960s on—through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.
From “one of our most gifted writers” (The Boston Globe), Our Evenings sweeps readers from our past to our present through the beauty, pain, and joy of one deeply observed life.
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"A sweeping story of one man’s life—first a working-class, brown-skinned teenager at a fancy boarding school on a scholarship, then a young man exploring his sexuality, then an actor, then a married man in London—and the family, not his own who gave him so much and also would threaten to take it away. All of this being very likely, given the source, to destroy you by the end (in the best way, of course)."
— Lit Hub
Quotes
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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 -
It’s time for American readers to know the genius of Alan Hollinghurst . . . Britain’s finest prose stylist. . . . Extraordinary . . . gorgeous.
— The Washington Post -
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 -
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 AwPraise for Alan Hollinghurst -
Hollinghurst has a strong, perhaps unassailable claim to be the best English novelist working today.
— The Guardian -
Hollinghurst knows that the present is never as enlightened as it likes to think it is, nor the past quite as backward. . . . [His genius] has been to speak in a voice steeped in English heritage about a subculture that England’s rigid and stratified society long refused to acknowledge, let alone accept.
— Giles Harvey, The New York Times -
[Hollinghurst has] a truly Jamesian fineness of perception. . . . [He is] one of the best novelists at work today.
— The Wall Street Journal -
One can’t get enough of Hollinghurst’s sentences.
— The Washington Post -
One of our most gifted writers.
— The Boston Globe -
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 -
Booker winner Hollinghurst (The Line of Beauty) traces the divisions of post-Brexit London in this elegant tale of two men’s divergent paths across decades. . . . Hollinghurst proves once more to be a master of emotive prose. It’s a tour de force.
— Publishers Weekly, starred review -
Hollinghurst continues to amaze and delight, hitting both the most delicate grace notes and portentous chords perfectly . . . and then suddenly there’s an ending you will likely find yourself reading several times so you can fully take in its subtlety, power, and emotion.
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review -
Our Evenings is marked by a sharp eye, a tender sensibility, and an unflagging wit. I never wanted it to end.
— Emma Donoghue, author of The Pull of the Stars and Room -
This sublime novel—classic Hollinghurst in everything but point of view—could not be timelier.
— Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk -
This is an extraordinary novel from Booker Prize winner Hollinghurst, memorably conceived, beautifully executed, and a gift to lovers of serious literary fiction. Every aspect is flawless: complex, multidimensional characters, subtle treatment of emotions, beautiful writing, a vividly realized theatrical setting, and more.
— Booklist, starred review -
Hollinghurst doesn’t hesitate to linger over scenes of exquisite sensory detail and complex social ritual—the lift of a brow, the inflection of a voice. This lends the book a richness and subtlety that sets it apart from most contemporary fiction.
— Vulture -
Hollinghurst shows off his singular ability to bring readers inside the world of a character.
— Town & Country -
Award-winning writer Alan Hollinghurst returns with a deeply moving novel, Our Evenings. . . . Readers will be swept away by this beautiful narrative as our protagonist navigates modern England and the intersectionality of class, race, and sexuality.
— SheReads -
Booker winner Hollinghurst traces the divisions of post-Brexit London in this elegant tale of two men’s divergent paths across decades. . . . Hollinghurst proves once more to be a master of emotive prose. It’s a tour de force.
— Publishers Weekly, starred review -
Our Evenings is that rare bird: a muscular work of ideas and an engrossing tale of one man’s personal odyssey as he grows up, framed in exquisite language.
— The New York Times Book Review -
A novel about acceptance: of time’s passage, of life’s limitations, of the small victories that make existence meaningful.
— The Guardian -
Such passages of precise and perceptive social dissection are what the Hollinghurst fan lives for . . .
— Slate -
Hollinghurst’s cultural range—as his new novel, Our Evenings, again confirms—is enormous.
— The Atlantic -
Our Evenings is [Hollinghurst’s] longest and most stately production yet, the measured, deliberate work of an experienced artist who refuses to be rushed. Vaulty and voluminous . . .
— Los Angeles Review of Books -
Perhaps his best yet. . . If you’ve never read [Hollinghurst] and enjoy literary fiction, compelling characters and a panorama of British history, Our Evenings is for you.
— Parade -
[Our Evenings is] 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 -
[Our Evenings is] a meditation on growing old, the mutability of relationships, and the fragility of social progress, framed by the world-on-fire mood of the present.
— Vulture -
The book contains moments of extraordinary beauty and set pieces as powerful as anything Hollinghurst has written.
— The New Yorker -
A work of such expansive, affecting brilliance.
— Daily Mail -
[Hollinghurst is] infinitely sensitive to landscapes, colours, textures, able to convey the most delicate of sensations and emotions.
— The Telegraph -
Exquisitely fashioned . . . a masterful accomplishment.
— BookPage, starred review -
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.
— Tash Aw -
Extraordinary. . . Every aspect is flawless: complex, multidimensional characters, subtle treatment of emotions, beautiful writing, a vividly realized theatrical setting, and more.
— Booklist, starred review -
A sweeping story of one man’s life. . .[Very likely] to destroy you by the end (in the best way, of course).
— Lit Hub -
Hollinghurst proves once more to be a master of emotive prose. [Our Evenings is] a tour de force.
— Publishers Weekly, starred review -
Hollinghurst continues to amaze and delight.
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review -
Every new Alan Hollinghurst novel is cause for celebration. . . . [Written by] the author of the loveliest sentences in contemporary English. . . Our Evenings is melancholy and ravishing.
— Slate, “The 10 Best Books of 2024” -
Hollinghurst’s cultural range—as his new novel, Our Evenings, again confirms—is enormous.
— The Atlantic -
[Hollinghurst is] infinitely sensitive to landscapes, colours, textures, able to convey the most delicate of sensations and emotions.
— The Telegraph -
This sublime novel—classic Hollinghurst in everything but point of view—could not be timelier.
— Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk
Our Evenings Listener Reviews
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Laurence Colton, 9/1/2025
About Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst is the author of several novels, including The Line of Beauty, which won the Man Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has received the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.