Interview with Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst's extraordinarily rich novel The Line of Beauty. has garnered a new level of acclaim for the author after winning the 2004 Man Booker Prize. Hollinghurst speaks about his work in our interview.


From Publishers Weekly
Among its other wonders, this almost perfectly written novel, recently longlisted for the Man Booker, delineates what's arguably the most coruscating portrait of a plutocracy since Goya painted the Spanish Bourbons. To shade in the nuances of class, Hollingsworth uses plot the way it was meant to be used—not as a line of utility, but as a thematically connected sequence of events that creates its own mini-value system and symbols.The book is divided into three sections, dated 1983, 1986 and 1987. The protagonist, Nick Guest, is a James scholar in the making and a tripper in the fast gay culture of the time. The first section shows Nick moving into the Notting Hill mansion of Gerald Fedden, one of Thatcher's Tory MPs, at the request of the minister's son, Toby, Nick's all-too-straight Oxford crush. Nick becomes Toby's sister Catherine's confidante, securing his place in the house, and loses his virginity spectacularly to Leo, a black council worker. The next section jumps the reader ahead to a more sophisticated Nick. Leo has dropped out of the picture; cocaine, three-ways and another Oxford alum, the sinisterly alluring, wealthy Lebanese Wani Ouradi, have taken his place. Nick is dimly aware of running too many risks with Wani, and becomes accidentally aware that Gerald is running a few, too. Disaster comes in 1987, with a media scandal that engulfs Gerald and then entangles Nick. While Hollinghurst's story has the true feel of Jamesian drama, it is the authorial intelligence illuminating otherwise trivial pieces of story business so as to make them seem alive and mysteriously significant that gives the most pleasure. This is Nick coming home for the first and only time with the closeted Leo: "there were two front doors set side by side in the shallow recess of the porch. Leo applied himself to the right hand one, and it was one of those locks that require tender probings and tuggings, infinitesimal withdrawals, to get the key to turn." This novel has the air of a classic. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
The Line of Beauty is the first novel focused on gay life to win the Booker Prize, yet it does more than glance back at the sometimes frivolous and deadly aspects of London’s gay culture. Hollinghurst, acknowledged as one of his generation’s best writers, is an incisive social and political satirist. With a sly wit, he confirms stereotypes about class, family, society, politics, and sexuality in ‘80s-era London—just like Henry James did for late nineteenth-century New York and European society. Hollinghurst handles serious themes with a light touch—and a soft dose of morality. What emerges is a remarkable psychological portrait of an era. There’s the obsequious Nick, who can’t deal with power around him, his benumbed lovers, smarmy politicians, and coke dealers. In his previous novels Hollinghurst all but ignored women; here, they come into their own. Rachel possesses a "velvety graciousness lined with steel," Catherine represents the conscience of the decade, and Margaret Thatcher hovers on the sidelines, threatening to make a highly anticipated cameo any moment (New York Times Book Review).The "pointillist attention to detail makes every character fascinating" (Miami Herald). The characters’ richness—or, rich vacuity—complements Hollinghurst’s exquisite prose and lavish set details; in one scene, Nick comments on art from his drug dealer’s car. But critics couched a few minor complaints amid their effusive praise. Hollinghurst’s homosexuals are all oversensitive, lonely, doomed, and engage in graphic sex. Some critics found the lengthy discourses on culture tedious. Finally, Nick’s four-year lodging at the Freddens, with his secret affairs, often belies reality. Small criticisms, really—this book is deserving of the Booker.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Hollinghurst's first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), won major acclaim and many awards. His latest novel engages similar themes--a young man new to both his sexuality and the manners of high society. Set in London during the early 1980s, the economy is booming, the Tories have just been swept into power, Margaret Thatcher is prime minister, and the country is awash in hope and excitement. Nick Guest, fresh out of Oxford, is staying in London with the Fedden family--whose son, Toby, was Nick's dearest friend at Oxford. The father, Gerald, is a newly elected conservative member of parliament and is infatuated with Thatcher, whom he calls "the Lady." Nick, by his proximity to the Feddens, attends swank parties, packed with MPs, cabinet ministers, and nobility, all of whom harbor the expectation that "the Lady" might appear at any minute. Meanwhile, Nick embarks on two love affairs--first with Leo, a young black London clerk, and later with Wani, a Lebanese millionaire and friend from Oxford. After nights of parties, drugs, sex, and snobbery, scandal--in which Nick plays an unwilling part-- visits the Fedden family. The material and social excesses of the 1980s are deftly portrayed in Hollinghurst's latest success. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Scotland on Sunday
"Stunning...a joy to read. It is solid and traditional, beautifully crafted-a qquiet masterpiece"


Review
"Stunning...a joy to read. It is solid and traditional, beautifully crafted-a qquiet masterpiece"


GQ
"Vast scope... smart, funny, and for all its vividly engaging ways, a pretty souund document of the times"


Financial Times
"Must rank among the funniest [novels] ever written about Thatcher's Britain, whhile remaining one of the most tragically sad"


Guardian
"Hollinghurst proves to be one of the sharpest observers of privileged social grroupings since Anthony Powell"


Observer
"A classic of our times.The work of a great English stylist in full maturity; a masterpiece."


Spectator
"Wonderful... almost unbelievably well-written. In its dazzling, very contemporrary way, the book is tragic.But it is also consistently funny"


The Times
"Luminous...a crafty, glittering, sidelong bid by a contemporary master of Engliish prose to be considered heir to James himself."


Daily Telegraph
"A magnificent novel...There are literally thousands of impeccably nuanced touchhes."


Sunday Times
"Exquisitely written...Its delights and rewards extend beyond its comic or docummentary achievements."


Book Description
In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby-whom Nick had idolized at Oxford-and Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions.

As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as the desire for power and riches among his friends. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a major work by one of our finest writers.



About the Author
Alan Hollinghurst is the author of three novels, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star, and The Spell. He lives in London.

ANNOTATION

Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children Toby and Catherine. Nick had idolized Toby at Oxford, but in his London life it will be the troubled Catherine, the critic and rebel of the family, who becomes both his friend and his uneasy responsibility." "As the boom years of the mid-80s unfold, Nick, an innocent in matters of politics and money, becomes caught up in the Feddens' world - its grand parties, its surprising alliances, its parade of monsters both comic and menacing. In an era of endless possibility, Nick finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession, with beauty - a prize as compelling to him as power and riches are to his friends. An affair with a young black council worker gives him his first experience of romance; but it is a later affair, with a beautiful millionaire, that will change his life more drastically and bring into question the larger fantasies of a ruthless decade." Framed by the two general elections which returned Mrs. Thatcher to power, The Line of Beauty unfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly funny, it is a major work by one of the finest writers in the English language.

FROM THE CRITICS

Anthony Quinn - The New York Times

It is highly characteristic of Hollinghurst to oscillate between the high and the low, often within the same paragraph: consider the moment of weird hilarity as Nick, ever the aesthete, absently recalls the details of a Gothic-style church seen through the windshield of his drug dealer's car. The pathos of old buildings is later reprised as Nick surveys the tearing down of a Victorian workshop, a melancholy intimation that beautifully dovetails with the sudden dramatic unraveling of his family idyll. It is also of a piece with the elegiac close, rendered with a grace and decorum entirely appropriate to this outstanding novel.

Michael Dirda - The Washington Post

Edmund White has said that Alan Hollinghurst "writes the best prose we have today." I might not go that far -- White himself is no slouch with a sentence -- but if you value style, wit and social satire in your reading, don't miss this elegant and passionate novel.

Publishers Weekly

Among its other wonders, this almost perfectly written novel, recently longlisted for the Mann Booker, delineates what's arguably the most coruscating portrait of a plutocracy since Goya painted the Spanish Bourbons. To shade in the nuances of class, Hollingsworth uses plot the way it was meant to be used-not as a line of utility, but as a thematically connected sequence of events that creates its own mini-value system and symbols. The book is divided into three sections, dated 1983, 1986 and 1987. The protagonist, Nick Guest, is a James scholar in the making and a tripper in the fast gay culture of the time. The first section shows Nick moving into the Notting Hill mansion of Gerald Fedden, one of Thatcher's Tory MPs, at the request of the minister's son, Toby, Nick's all-too-straight Oxford crush. Nick becomes Toby's sister Catherine's confidante, securing his place in the house, and loses his virginity spectacularly to Leo, a black council worker. The next section jumps the reader ahead to a more sophisticated Nick. Leo has dropped out of the picture; cocaine, three-ways and another Oxford alum, the sinisterly alluring, wealthy Lebanese Wani Ouradi, have taken his place. Nick is dimly aware of running too many risks with Wani, and becomes accidentally aware that Gerald is running a few, too. Disaster comes in 1987, with a media scandal that engulfs Gerald and then entangles Nick. While Hollinghurst's story has the true feel of Jamesian drama, it is the authorial intelligence illuminating otherwise trivial pieces of story business so as to make them seem alive and mysteriously significant that gives the most pleasure. This is Nick coming home for the first and only time with the closeted Leo: "there were two front doors set side by side in the shallow recess of the porch. Leo applied himself to the right hand one, and it was one of those locks that require tender probings and tuggings, infinitesimal withdrawals, to get the key to turn." This novel has the air of a classic. Agent, Emma Parry. (Oct.) Forecast: Widely praised for his three previous novels, Hollinghurst (The Swimming-Pool Library) is primed for even greater acclaim and sales with this masterful volume, the latest in a wave of Jamesian novels. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews