The Sparsholt Affair

Alan Hollinghurst

The Sparsholt Affair
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Pan Macmillan
Country
United Kingdom
Published
12 June 2018
Pages
448
ISBN
9781447208228

The Sparsholt Affair

Alan Hollinghurst

In October 1940, the handsome young David Sparsholt arrives in Oxford. A keen athlete and oarsman, he at first seems unaware of the effect he has on others - particularly on the lonely and romantic Evert Dax, son of a celebrated novelist and destined to become a writer himself. While the Blitz rages in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove: an ephemeral, uncertain place, in which nightly blackouts conceal secret liaisons. Over the course of one momentous term, David and Evert forge an unlikely friendship that will colour their lives for decades to come …

Alan Hollinghurst’s masterly new novel evokes the intimate relationships of a group of friends bound together by art, literature and love across three generations. It explores the social and sexual revolutions of the most pivotal years of the past century, whose life-changing consequences are still being played out to this day. Richly observed, disarmingly witty and emotionally charged, The Sparsholt Affair is an unmissable achievement from one of our finest writers.

Review

Spanning 70 years, Alan Hollinghurst’s long-awaited new novel begins with a group of friends at Oxford during World War II and follows the ensemble over the years and generations. The book is divided into four parts, set in four distinct periods of the late twentieth century. It alternates between four different perspectives, beginning with Freddie Green and Evert Dax, who meet the enigmatic David Sparsholt at Oxford in 1940. The action then moves to Cornwall in the 1960s, to the circle of artists that orbits Evert’s decrepit London mansion in the 1970s, and then to the present-day.

Every character is fully formed, with each distinct personality enhanced by the multitude of perspectives that we glimpse them from – although the story really belongs to Johnny Sparsholt, David’s son. In his understated style (which contrasts nicely with the ambitious scope of the novel), Hollinghurst quietly moves the narrative forward in time, letting the reader figure out the historical setting. By hinting at details – for instance, we are never told the exact year that a bell-bottom clad Johnny has an eye-opening night out at an actual gay nightclub during one of London’s apparently frequent blackouts, but it’s easy enough to deduce – the reader does the contextual work, while the author focuses on the characters and the scene at hand. Hollinghurst’s restrained style evokes the propriety of the English middle and upper classes, but also works to show how societal change that appears to take place in the background subtly impacts day-to-day life.

Without bashing you over the head with context, metaphors or judgements – which would be easy to do in a novel concerned with the big themes of love, art, sexuality, class, ageing and mortality – Hollinghurst lets each beautifully rendered episode speak for itself. The Sparsholt Affair is an evocative, emotionally resonant and, of course, profoundly British novel, and fans of Hollinghurst will not be disappointed.


Kelsey Oldham works as a bookseller at Readings Hawthorn.

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