A review by casskrug
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

3.0

our evenings is a character study centering around our narrator, dave win, a gay man of burmese descent living in traditionally straight, white english society. we follow him throughout his life and his career as an actor, examining his relationship with his mother, multiple love interests, and an old classmate who becomes a conservative politician and keeps popping up in dave’s life. the novel is very slow paced and spans an incredible amount of time, showing how british culture evolved from the 1960s to present day. i thought the longing and displacement david felt because of his identity was palpable and enjoyed reading about his involvement in experimental theater. without giving anything away, i also thought the character of his mother was really captivating as a kind of foil to david’s identity. 

i can’t tell if spreading this out over almost the entire month of november worked for or against my experience with the book - clocking in at almost 500 pages, i wanted to chip away at it each day so that i could make time for other books as well. i don’t think the book needed to be as long as it is. the prose was really beautiful but i was having a hard time with some unclear time jumps and keeping straight the introductions of new characters. i will say the ending really got me, i found it to be quite unexpected and a culturally relevant way to wrap things up. overall i just didn’t feel as drawn into the story as i’d like to be with such a long novel. 

thank you to random house for sending me a copy!