Books: “Our Evenings” by Alan Hollinghurst

“Our Evenings,” Alan Hollinghurst’s tender new novel, is basically the story of an actor’s life. And not just any actor but one who starts out poor, is of mixed-race heritage, and who happens to be gay.

David, who is half-Burmese, lives with his English mother Av, in the small town of Foxleigh in the Berkshire Downs. He’s the illegitimate child of an affair his English mother had while working as a typist for the last governor of British Burma after World War II.

Av is a dressmaker who enter into a business relationship with Esme, a bossy wealthy older divorcee. The business relationship soon turns into what they call a “Boston marriage” (aka lesbian.)

David is hardly around to observe Av or Esme. He’s an exhibitioner (aka scholarship student) at Brampton, a local public all-boys school. The scholarship is funded by a wealthy progressive couple, Mark and Cara Hadlow, whose bullying son Giles is a schoolmate of David’s.

At the end of a visit to the Hadlows’ family farm, David demonstrates his acting ability, rehearsing a scene with Mark's mother Elise, an elderly French actress. His confidence grows and soon he’s able to win over his fellow high schoolers with witty impersonations of their instructors.

After public school, David attends Oxford, where his performance as Mosca in a production of “Volpone“ receives a positive review in The Times. He eventually decides once and for all that the actor’s life is his.

David joins an experimental theatre company (we are after all in swinging London circa 1960s), and gets roles which often require him to strip naked. He does get good notices for them, and attracts stage-door Johnnies who take a fancy to him. One of them is Chris, an older, sexually voracious MP, whom he eventually dumps for Hector, a Black fellow actor who has set his sights on Hollywood and who in turn dumps David.

After years of hard work, David develops into a skilled actor and speaker, and writes a book about his career once he reaches 60. While promoting it at a literary festival, he meets Richard, who becomes his life partner. Still he is haunted by the past, including memories of his aging mother and Esme, and the odious Giles who has become a loud-mouthed Brexiteer politician.

The novel spans six decades—from early 1960s to the era of the pandemic. It reads like a memoir of someone you may want to know better IRL. But it doesn’t pull any punches about the difficulties of life as an actor. And for its sheer honesty, as well as the grace of its prose, it’s well worth your time.

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