The Line of Beauty

It's the 1980s, and Margaret Thatcher is Britain's PM. A Henry James scholar named Nick Guest, just down from Oxford, is staying with his friend Gerald at the posh home of Gerald's father, a Tory member of Parliament. There he befriends the mentally fragile young daughter of the family, as he also becomes caught up in the world of the idle rich, learning eventually that there are indeed vast differences between the rich and everyone else. The novel takes Nick through the '80s, as he comes to terms with his homosexuality, has a number of affairs, witnesses the ravages of AIDS, discovers cocaine, and finally is confronted with a scandal that could destroy him. Margaret Thatcher, the reigning queen behind the upscale glitz of Britain in that decade, makes a fascinating cameo appearance late in the novel. THE LINE OF BEAUTY won the Booker Prize in 2004 and was a New York Times Notable Book for 2004.

"Among its other wonders, this almost perfectly written novel...delineates what’s arguably the most coruscating portrait of a plutocracy since Goya painted the Spanish Bourbons....While Hollinghurst’s story has the true feel of Jamesian drama, it is the authorial intelligence illuminating otherwise trivial pieces of story business so as to make them seem alive and mysteriously significant that gives the most pleasure....This novel has the air of a classic." - (Publishers Weekly, 9/20/04)

"As a novelist, Alan Hollinghurst's has set himself an intimidating standard....To say, then, that his latest novel, the Booker Prize-winning LINE OF BEAUTY, is also his finest should give some idea of its accomplishment, not just in the breadth of its ambition but in its felicities of observation and expression....Despite Nick's sexual adventures, the novel marks a change from Hollinghurst's predominantly homocentric fiction. In fact, female characters, hitherto felt by some readers as a decided absence, are among the liveliest here....Although it gathers ominously in mood, THE LINE OF BEAUTY - Herbert L. Baer (New York Times Book Review, 10/31/04)

"Hollinghurst proves to be one of the sharpest observers of privileged social groupings since Anthony Powell....For the first time, there is a clear sense that Hollinghurst has extended his powers to create a universe rather than a clique; and though it adopts a highly privileged perspective, the novel has sufficient breadth to evoke the full social spectrum of 1980s Britain--gay and straight, rich and poor." - Steve Crow (Guardian (London), 4/10/04)

"In this season of James-chasing, here is the real thing: a novel at once in explicit dialogue with Henry James and more quietly but deeply infected by the rhythms of his prose. But Alan Hollinghurst's novel is not an example of overfed antiquarianism; it rations what it needs from the Jamesian gift. Hollinghurst's talents are themselves quite large enough to manage any overwhelming predecessor, and the result is a confidently contemporary novel....Hollinghurst's prose is a genuine achievement--lavish, poised, sinuously alert....THE LINE OF BEAUTY is an ample and sophisticated delight, charged - Carl Krasik (New Republic, 12/13/04)

"No one writes novels better than Hollinghurst; he puts together books that are like pieces of furniture made without nails. Here he dramatizes with innumerable apt details and intricate plotting a whole household meant to stand for the Thatcher era....Things move along in this tour de force at a rapid pace...: a large cast of sharply drawn characters comes in and out; one dazzling set piece succeeds another; the dialogue is so good you want to hear actors deliver it on film....The writing has never been sharper...." - Chris Whitehouse (Gay & Lesbian Review, 12/1/04)

"The novel moves forward in a series of brilliant set scenes, pieces of atmosphere, moods sharply described and delineated. The plot...deals with the enrichment of Nick's experience, his moving from snobbish provincial to uneasy cosmopolitan, his close observing of the rich and the ruling class, his experiences with drugs, sex, and high art. It would be easy to bring the novel down lightly.... But [Hollinghurst] has not given up his ambitions to have an old-fashioned plotline, with the tabloid press and lovers discovered and much else....Paragraph by paragraph, his novel is written with such c - James Withers (New York Review of Books, 1/13/05)

"Though he's best known for his elegant descriptions of gay male life and pitch-perfect prose, Hollinghurst is most striking here for his successful, often damning, observations about the vast divides between the ruling class and everyone else....A beautifully realized portrait of a decade and a social class...." - (Kirkus, 8/15/04)

top literary genres books

Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen +w Jacob Jankowski, 90 years old and living in a nursing home, tells how, orphaned...  read more

2.  The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini +w 3.  The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd +w 4.  Wicked - Gregory Maguire +w 5.  Life of Pi - Yann Martel +w 6.  The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory +w 7.  The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold +w 8.  Atonement - Ian McEwan +w 9.  Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire +w 10.  El Amor En Los Tiempos Del Colera / Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez +w

top family & friendship books

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini +w Khaled Hosseini's bestselling debut novel THE KITE RUNNER told of the bond...  read more

2.  The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger +w 3.  My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult +w 4.  The Choice - Nicholas Sparks +w 5.  Good In Bed - Jennifer Weiner +w 6.  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon +w 7.  The Pact - Jodi Picoult +w 8.  Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult +w 9.  Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides +w 10.  Harvesting the Heart - Jodi Picoult +w