Nick Guest is a young gay PhD student staying in the house of an adored friend, whose father is a rich, rising Conservative MP. Through the family he is drawn into a dangerous world of ambition and indulgence. It is a vivid evocation of the 1980s: the politics, family life, cocaine-fuelled parties and the gay scene. Hollingshurst lingers rather too long at Hampstead Ponds for me, but the pace gathers towards a dramatic ending.
*Winner of the 2004 Man Booker prize.
(Victoria Grey-Edwards - bwl 27 December 2004 ) |
