Awards
2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
Synopses & Reviews
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER, WINNER OF THE 2004 MAN BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION, AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
A New York Times Bestseller (Extended) · A LA Times Bestseller List · A Book Sense National Bestseller · A Northern California Bestseller · A Sunday Times Bestseller List · A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
And chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by:
Entertainment Weekly · The Washington Post · The San Francisco Chronicle · The Seattle Times
Newsday · Salon.com · The Boston Globe · The New York Sun · The Miami Herald · The Dallas Morning News · San Jose Mercury News · Publishers Weekly
Alan Hollinghurst is the author of The Swimming-Pool Library, The Spell, and The Folding Star. 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. He lives in London. Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction
A New York Times Notable Book
It is the summer of 1983, and twenty-year-old Nick Guest has moved 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, Tobywhom Nick had idolized at Oxfordand Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions, who becomes both a friend to Nick and his uneasy responsibility.
As the boom years of the mid-eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in matter of politics and money, becomes caught up in the Feddens' worldits grand parties, its surprising alliances, its parade of monsters both comic and menacing. In an era of endless possibility, he finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession with beautya prize as compelling to him as power and riches are to his friends. An affair with a young black clerk 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 election that returned Margaret Thatcher to power, The Line of Beauty unfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly funny, this is a major work by one of our finest writers. Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
A New York Times Notable Book of 2004 "A magnificent comedy of manners. Hollinghurst's alertness to the tiniest social and tonal shifts never slackens, and positively luxuriates in a number of unimprovably droll set pieces . . . [an] outstanding novel."New York Times Book Review "A magnificent comedy of manners. Hollinghurst's alertness to the tiniest social and tonal shifts never slackens, and positively luxuriates in a number of unimprovably droll set pieces . . . [an] outstanding novel."New York Times Book Review "His most tender and powerful novel to date, a sprawling and haunting elegy to the 1980s."Entertainment Weekly "Mr. Hollinghurst's great gift as a novelist is for social satire as sharp and transparent at glass, catching his quarry from an angle just an inch to the left of the view they themselves would catch in the mantelpiece mirror . . . The Line of Beauty is unlikely to be surpassed."New York Observer "Vast scope . . . smart, funny, and for all its vividly engaging ways, a pretty sound document of the times."GQ "Must rank among the funniest [novels] ever written about Thatcher's Britain, while remaining one of the most tragically sad."Financial Times "Hollinghurst proves to be one of the sharpest observers of privileged social groupings since Anthony Powell."The Guardian "[The] pointillist attention to detail makes every character fascinating."The Miami Herald "Wonderful . . . almost unbelievably well-written. In its dazzling, very contemporary way, the book is tragic. But it is also consistently funny."The Spectator "Luminous . . . a crafty, glittering, sidelong bid by a contemporary master of English prose to be considered heir to James himself."The Times (London) "Hollinghurst's first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), won major acclaim and many awards. His latest novel engages similar themesa 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 familywhose 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 affairsfirst 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, scandalin which Nick plays an unwilling partvisits the Fedden family. The material and social excesses of the 1980s are deftly portrayed in Hollinghurst's latest success."Michael Spinella, Booklist "Almost perfectly written . . . this novel has the air of a classic."Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"Edmund White has said that Alan Hollinghurst 'writes the best prose we have today.' I might not go that far...but if you value style, wit and social satire in your reading, don't miss this elegant and passionate novel." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
Review
"It is only worrisome that The Line of Beauty, one of the most mentally nurturing reads this year, is so similar to The Swimming-Pool Library; one hopes that Hollinghurst, who should be beloved, will take us farther afield in the future." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Hollinghurst is most striking here for his successful, often damning, observations about the vast divides between the ruling class and everyone else....A beautifully realized portrait of a decade and a social class, but without a well-developed emotional core." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"As a novelist, Alan Hollinghurst has set himself an intimidating standard....To say...that his latest novel, the Booker Prize-winning Line of Beauty, is also his finest should give some idea of its accomplishment." New York Times
Review
"Hollinghurst has placed his gay protagonist within a larger social context, and the result is his most tender and powerful novel to date, a sprawling and haunting elegy to the 1980s. A" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Mr. Hollinghurst's great gift as a novelist is for social satire as sharp and transparent as glass....The Line of Beauty is unlikely to be surpassed." New York Observer
Review
"A magnificent comedy of manners. Hollinghurst's alertness to the tiniest social and tonal shifts never slackens, and positively luxuriates in a number of unimprovably droll set pieces...[an] outstanding novel." New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Hollinghurst's] best writing is more disciplined than this, more subtly melded of its thematic constituents, and above all more profound, more truly Jamesian in its treatment of the ordeals of consciousness. Nonetheless, there is much to savour in The Line of Beauty: not least its humour, a shivering yet morally exacting satire that leaves no character untouched and finally consumes the grotesques whose odiousness it has so generously indulged. Equally and characteristically, there is the stinging precision of its prose, a near-poetic aptitude for producing the very thing its title tantalizingly portends." Henry Hitching, The Times Literary Supplement (read the entire Times Literary Supplement reveiw)
Review
"Line for line, Hollinghurst's novel about London during the 1980s is the most exquisitely written book I've read in years. Witty observations about politics, society, and family open like little revelations on every page. But it's also an explicitly gay novel....All this should produce a complex reception for the Booker winner. In some quarters, the novel's triumph will be a late vindication for gay literature. Others will fret over the shocking sex scenes. But anyone who reads The Line of Beauty will come face to face with one of the most brilliant stylists and perceptive novelists writing today." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
Review
"Hollinghurst's prose is a genuine achievement lavish, poised, sinuously alert. His sentences are rich but not languid. He is an aesthete who finally avoids aestheticism, partly because, in a characteristic Jamesian swerve, he is morally suspicious of an aestheticism whose charms he also swayingly registers. His writing is most Jamesian, perhaps, in its constant air of poised intelligence..." James Wood, The New Republic (read the entire New Republic review)
Synopsis
"One can't get enough of Hollinghurst's sentences...If you value style, wit, and social satire in your reading, don't miss this elegant and passionate novel."-"Washington Post"
Winner of 2004's Man Booker Prize for fiction and one of the most talked about books of the year, "The Line of Beauty "is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money that brings Thatcher's London alive. Nick Guest has moved in with the Feddens, a family whose patriarch is a conservative member of parliament. An innocent in matters of politics and money, Nick becomes caught up in the Feddens' world of parties and excess, as well as in his own private pursuit of beauty. Framed by the two general elections that returned Margaret Thatcher to power, "The Line of Beauty "unfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy.
A "New York Times "Bestseller (Extended) A "LA Times "Bestseller List A Book Sense National Bestseller A Northern California Bestseller A "Sunday Times "Bestseller List A "New York Times "Notable Book of the Year
And chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by: "Entertainment Weekly " "The Washington Post " "The San Francisco Chronicle " "The Seattle Times" "Newsday" Salon.com "The Boston Globe " "The New York Sun " "The Miami Herald " "The Dallas Morning News " "San Jose Mercury News " "Publishers Weekly"
"A magnificent comedy of manners. Hollinghurst's alertness to the tiniest social and tonal shifts never slackens, and positively luxuriates in a number of unimprovably droll set pieces... an] outstanding novel."-"New York Times Book Review"
"Hollinghurst has placed his gay protagonist within a larger social context, and the result is his most tender and powerful novel to date, a sprawling and haunting elegy to the 1980s. A"-"Entertainment Weekly"
"Mr. Hollinghurst's great gift as a novelist is for social satire as sharp and tra"
Synopsis
Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the NBCC award. From Alan Hollinghurst, the acclaimed author of The Sparsholt Affair, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and tragedy.
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, who is 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 is a major work by one of our finest writers.
Synopsis
Winner of the Man Booker Prize
Named a Best Book of the Century by The New York Times Book Review
International Bestseller
From acclaimed author Alan Hollinghurst, a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and tragedy.
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, who is 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 man who works as a 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 is a major work by one of our finest writers.
Synopsis
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 is a major work by one of our finest writers.
Synopsis
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER, WINNER OF THE 2004 MAN BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION, AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
Winner of 2004’s Man Booker Prize for fiction and one of the most talked about books of the year, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money that brings Thatcher’s London alive.
A New York Times Bestseller (Extended) · A LA Times Bestseller List · A Book Sense National Bestseller · A Northern California Bestseller · A Sunday Times Bestseller List · A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
And chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by:
Entertainment Weekly · The Washington Post · The San Francisco Chronicle · The Seattle Times
Newsday · Salon.com · The Boston Globe · The New York Sun · The Miami Herald · The Dallas Morning News · San Jose Mercury News · Publishers Weekly
CITATION: "One can't get enough of Hollinghurst's sentences.If you value style, wit, and social satire in your reading, don't miss this elegant and passionate novel."
(Washington Post)
CITATION: "A magnificent comedy of manners. Hollinghurst's alertness to the tiniest social and tonal shifts never slackens, and positively luxuriates in a number of unimprovably droll set pieces.[an] outstanding novel."
(New York Times Book Review)
CITATION: "Hollinghurst has placed his gay protagonist within a larger social context, and the result is his most tender and powerful novel to date, a sprawling and haunting elegy to the 1980s. A"
(Entertainment Weekly)
CITATION: "Mr. Hollinghurst's great gift as a novelist is for social satire as sharp and transparent as glass, catching his quarry from an angle just an inch to the left of the view they themselves would catch in the mantelpiece mirror.The Line of Beauty is unlikely to be surpassed."
(New York Observer)
CITATION: "Line for line, Hollinghurst's novel about London during the 1980s is the most exquisitely written book I've read in years. Witty observations about (Christian Science Monitor)
CITATION: "Almost perfectly written.this novel has the air of a classic."
(Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed review)
Synopsis
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER, WINNER OF THE 2004 MAN BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION, AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
Winner of 2004s Man Booker Prize for fiction and one of the most talked about books of the year, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money that brings Thatchers London alive.
A New York Times Bestseller (Extended) · A LA Times Bestseller List · A Book Sense National Bestseller · A Northern California Bestseller · A Sunday Times Bestseller List · A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
And chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by:
Entertainment Weekly · The Washington Post · The San Francisco Chronicle · The Seattle Times
Newsday · Salon.com · The Boston Globe · The New York Sun · The Miami Herald · The Dallas Morning News · San Jose Mercury News · Publishers Weekly
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.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Alan Hollinghurst