The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [0]
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
A Book Sense National Bestseller
A Northern California Bestseller
A Sunday Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
And chosen as one of the best books of 2004 by:
Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday • Seattle Times • Salon.com • Boston Globe • New York Sun • Miami Herald • Dallas Morning News • San Jose Mercury News • Publishers Weekly
"In this saga about the Thatcher years Alan Hollinghurst writes harsh but deeply informed social satire from within, just as Proust did. Hollinghurst is never mocking or caricatural but subtly observant and completely participant. He writes the best prose we have today. He brings the eloquence of a George Eliot together with the sexiness and visual acuity of a Nabokov."—Edmund White
"An affecting work of art."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Hollinghurst's prose is a genuine achievement—lavish, poised, sinuously alert... The Line of Beauty is an ample and sophisticated delight, charged with hundreds of delicate impressions and insights, and scores of vital and lovely sentences. It is at once domestic and political, psychological and historical. It is funny, moving, and finally despairing."—New Republic
"His finest novel to date."—Geoff Dyer
"Line for line, Hollinghurst's novel about London during the 1980s is the most exquisitely written book I've read in years. Witty observations about politics, society, and family open like little revelations on every page."—Christian Science Monitor
"A rueful, snapshot-accurate portrait of this era."—Seattle Times
"An intoxicating read...each sentence in this book rings as perfect and true as a Schubert sonata."—Hartford Courant
"[A] masterpiece with a skillfully rendered social panorama, a Proustian alertness to social nuance and a stylistic precision that recalls [James]."—Newsday
"The Line of Beauty is itself a thing of beauty—an elegant and seductive novel...readers will hang on every bracing word. The Line of Beauty may perhaps be the author's most mature and accomplished work to date. It might also be his best."—Philadelphia City Paper
"A deliciously snarky portrait of Thatcherite Britain, but Hollinghurst also makes you believe in his characters, and nobody produced better prose this year."—San Jose Mercury News
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Swimming-Pool Library
The Folding Star
The Spell
THE LINE OF BEAUTY
A NOVEL
ALAN HOLLINGHURST
BLOOMSBURY
Copyright © 2005 by Alan Hollinghurst
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers
All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Hollinghurst, Alan.
The line of beauty / Alan Hollinghurst.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
1. University of Oxford—Alumni and alumnae—Fiction. 2. Notting Hill (London, England)—Fiction. 3. Male friendship—Fiction. 4. Social classes—Fiction. 5. Married people—Fiction. 6. Legislators—Fiction. 7. Rich people—Fiction. 8. Young men—Fiction. 9. Gay men—Fiction. I. Title.
PR 6058.O4467L56 2004
823'.914—dc22
2004047660
First published in the United States by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2004
This paperback edition published in 2005
eISBN: 978-1-59691-808-5
5 7 9 10 8 6
Typeset by Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed in the United States of America by Quebecor World Fairfield
FOR FRANCIS WYNDHAM
I am very grateful for the hospitality of Yaddo, where part of this novel was written.
A. H.
"What do you know about this business?"