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A review by rageofachilles
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
3.0
This book reminded me a bit of A.S. Byatt's Possession. The narrative, though, isn't focused so much on uncovering a secret romance as charting the development of social response to homosexuality in Britain. It is about poetry, and there is a fun detective game played out through literary studies (or biographical studies). The book does a good job, though, of not making the story too much about the poetry of Cecil Valance (by not giving us the full text) and more about the people he knew and affected.
The story is divided into sections with a lot of years in between each section. Much of the "whiplash" of a new section is orienting the reader to the new people and setting of this section (sometimes people's names even change). This would be my one complaint about the book. The changes made it hard at times to follow the actions. Otherwise, a fine novel.
The story is divided into sections with a lot of years in between each section. Much of the "whiplash" of a new section is orienting the reader to the new people and setting of this section (sometimes people's names even change). This would be my one complaint about the book. The changes made it hard at times to follow the actions. Otherwise, a fine novel.