★以《美麗線條》Line of Beauty獲得2004年布克獎殊榮，英國作家Alan Hollinghurst最新作品★
- 不僅是一本了不起的小說，更回顧英國從柴契爾到後疫情時代的歷史片刻 -
(本書為大開本)
大衛‧溫從小就有著和別人不一樣的臉龐，和母親艾薇兒蒼白皮膚相比，他的外貌充滿東方風情，偏暗的瞳仁與髮色，來自他從未見過來自緬甸的父親。艾薇兒是裁縫師，獨自辛苦將他帶大，幸運地，他獲得哈德洛家族的贊助，喜愛藝術的哈德洛夫妻贊助他去住宿學校就讀。對13歲的大衛來說，無疑開啟一扇充滿可能性的大門，唯一讓他感到困擾的，是他的同校同學、也是哈德洛的兒子吉爾斯，善妒，愛霸凌人，喜愛權力，且控制慾極強。
那個令他難忘的夜晚，在一次造訪哈德洛家的派對上，大衛首次體驗到感官對慾望與性的渴求，朦朧且模糊的性傾向，以及對於吉爾斯充滿惡意的嘲弄與歧視，前所未有過的情感與思緒如潮水般湧上，彷彿預告未來大衛的人生也將走上完全不同的道路...
從住宿男校班普頓到倫敦，從實驗劇場到國會政壇，大衛撐過苦澀的初戀和被霸凌的日子，他在劇場表演和舞台劇中找到自己；另外一邊，吉爾斯則因本性使然，越往極右派靠攏，主張排斥移民與邊境管制，他對權力的野心讓他在政治路上一路攀爬，目標是英國首相。大衛在情感路上跌跌撞撞，他想起母親是如何以無比的堅定和愛經營這個家，非傳統女性的艾薇兒一直都是大衛心中的基石，她未婚生子，甚至後來和鎮上另一位女性交往，展現出對彼此最真摯的愛與照顧。
儘管英國同志社群逐漸崛起，也引發保守派的抗議，政治與人權團體對立的波瀾不斷，大衛持續在表演的路上努力，低調追求愛情，時而瞥見過去同窗不斷出現於電視或報紙上，直至他終於遇見命中注定的另一半...
故事以緩慢而含蓄的敘事節奏，由已經年邁的大衛與伴侶，回顧過去的時光開始，勾勒出藝術、慾望與記憶之間的張力。作者Alan Hollinghurst一如既往展現對語言的精緻掌控與對同志情感世界的深刻洞察，搭配英國當時的文化、政治與歷史背景，描繪出當時代的獨特風貌。
“Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.”
Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the Hadlows, the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school where their son Giles is his contemporary. For Dave this weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to Giles’s envy and violence. As Our Evenings unfolds over half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically, Dave a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.
Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security; but it is also, very movingly, the story of his hard-working widowed mother, whose own life takes an unexpected new turn after her son leaves home.
Both dark and luminous, poignant and wickedly funny, Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel gives us a portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from the finest writer of our age.
