Tower and Town, September 2025 (view the full edition)Alan Hollinghurst (Golding Speaker) - Our Evenings
Written from the perspective of David Win, a queer actor of Anglo-Burmese descent, Hollinghurst's seventh novel is from the onset an undoubtedly poignant story exploring concepts of race, class, sex and prejudice yet, above all, love and memory. With a style of prose that can be described as nothing short of mellifluous, he portrays both the insidious and explicit nature of hate throughout the novel from racism to classism yet, furthermore, how love underlines us and perhaps even makes us whole, from not only the various romantic relationships Dave has in his life but also the beautiful platonic love we see between him and his mother. As a novel, it is a text that must be savoured, if only to pore over the subtleties of Hollinghurst's writing as he effectively explores the intersectionality of David's identity in relation to those around him without sensationalisation. To once again quote Cicero, "the love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time." For a novel that both begins and ends with death, Hollinghurst brings to life how important it is to live with not only tenderness, but conviction in one's self and others, for we all live interconnected. Golding Speaker Sir Alan Hollinghurst will be talking to journalist and broadcaster Alex Clark in the Town Hall at 7.30pm on Friday 26 September. Meenashi Thethron Seenaj |
