A review by lola425
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

3.0

I really liked the first quarter of the book, disliked the second quarter, started liking it again the third quarter and not so much by the fourth. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel. Should I have felt that everyone (from Cecil's time) became who they became because of Cecil's death or were they already on their way to becoming who they were before Cecil came along. And would a living Cecil changed everything or simply pushed people off track for awhile. George, for instance, as taken as he was with Cecil, we don't find him miserable at the end of his life. He looks back on his dalliance with Cecil with some joy, albeit still a largely unspoken one. And still you wonder what trouble a living Cecil might have stirred up. Of course, Cecil managed to stire things up from beyond the grave as the interest in his poetry sparked a biographical and litcrit industry that ultimately led to the revelation of all the secrets that Cecil initiated and that his immediate family and circle tried to keep hidden.

Once again, in a story that migrates between the historical and the modern, I find myself left cold by the modern narrative. Peter and Paul's flirtation was interesting, but once the story shifted to Paul, I lost interest. I didn't feel the motivation behind his passion for Cecil's story. He felt to me like a passionless scholar looking to out Cecil to fortify his own theories. I'm not sure that's how I should have felt.