The Line of Beauty A Novel

In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby-whom Nick had idolized at Oxford-and Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions. As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as the desire for power and riches among his friends. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a major work by one of our finest writers. Alan Hollinghurstis the author of three previous novels,The Swimming-Pool Library,The Folding Star, andThe Spell. He has received the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the James Tait Black memorial Prize for Fiction, and he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. He lives in London. Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction ANew York TimesNotable Book of 2004 It is the summer of 1983, and twenty-year-old Nick Guest has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Tobywhom Nick had idolized at Oxfordand Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions, who becomes both a friend to Nick and his uneasy responsibility. As the boom years of the mid-eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in matter of politics and money, becomes caught up in the Feddens' worldits grand parties, its surprising alliances, its parade of monsters both comic and menacing. In an era of endless possibility, he finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession with beautya prize as compelling to him as power and riches are to his friends. An affair with a young black clerk gives him his first experience of romance, but it is a later affair with a beautiful millionaire that will change his life more drastically and bring into question the larger fantasies of a ruthless decade. Framed by the two election that returned Margaret Thatcher to power,The Line of Beautyunfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly funny, this is a major work by one of our finest writers. Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction ANew York TimesNotable Book of 2004 "In this saga about the Thatcher years Alan Hollinghurst writes harsh but deeply informed social satire from within, just as Proust did. Hollinghurst is never mocking or caricatural but subtly observant and completely participant. He writes the best prose we have today."Edmund White "This is the fourth novel by one of the best stylists in the English language and winner of this year's Booker Prize. It has a well-developed plot and a large cast of charactersat the center of which is a young man searching for love and purpose in Margaret Thatcher's England. But the rich Tories and bitter Laborites battling for control of Britain's soul take a back seat to the book's elegant but sturdy prose, which is as finely crafted as an ornamental design on an old vase or in the stonework of a church portal."Michael Shelden,The Baltimore Sun "In this saga about the Thatcher years Alan Hollinghurst writes harsh but deeply informed social satire from within, just as Proust did. Hollinghurst is never mocking or caricatural but

Alan Hollinghurst is the author of three novels, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star, and The Spell. He lives in London.

"A magnificent comedy of manners. Hollinghurst's alertness to the tiniest social and tonal shifts never slackens...[an] outstanding novel."-New York Times Book Review

"If you value style, wit and social satire in your reading, don't miss this elegant and passionate novel."-Washington Post

"His most tender and powerful novel to date." A -Entertainment Weekly

"Each sentence in this book rings as perfect and true as a Schubert sonata."-Hartford Courant

"The Line of Beauty is itself a thing of beauty-an elegant and seductive novel."-Philadelphia City Paper

"It really is his finest novel to date."-Geoff Dyer

"A rueful, snapshot-accurate portrait of this era."-Seattle Times

"[A] masterpiece with a skillfully rendered social panorama, a Proustian alertness to social nuance and a stylistic precision that recalls [James]."-Newsday

"The most exquisitely written book I've read in years. Witty observations about politics, society, and family open like little revelations on every page." -Christian Science Monitor

"Almost perfectly written novel...This novel has the air of a classic."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

"In the tradition of Henry James, Hollinghurst has artfully crafted a piquant satire of privilege and sexuality in all its forms."-Genre Magazine

"The best English novel of the year so far is Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty."-Zadie Smith, Guardian (UK)

"Like reading gossip in beautifully made sentences with extraordinary insights into motive and nuance, allowing all the time for comedy."-Colm Toibin, Guardian (UK)