It is a great privilege to welcome Sir Alan Hollinghurst to Festilitt this year. His latest novel, Our Evenings is a sensitive and nuanced story narrated by a highly intelligent, gay, mixed-race man. The reader is taken on a journey through the world of the English elite as experienced by the outsider, David Win.
The book begins with David’s adolescence when he is exposed to racism in all its insidious forms. A series of painful and delicately described vignettes reveal the day- to-day humiliation he suffers because of his skin colour. At the same time, he becomes aware of his homosexuality, something that sets him further apart from the society he is thrust into.
After a conversation about theatre with an elderly French actress whom the 14-year- old David meets while staying at his benefactor’s house…. “Thank you, Madame Pleynet” and she smiled and touched my cheek, as if “seeing” me suddenly and all my potential. As I went down the hall, I heard her say, “Dear solemn little face he has – like a little brown cat.” As we follow him through his life and career, we watch David realize that potential as he finds his voice and his path.
Spoiler: his salvation is art.