THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR

Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hollinghurst’s sixth novel is concerned with the passage of time and choices whose consequences are felt by later generations. The central figure is the attractive David Sparsholt, whom we first encounter as an undergraduate in Oxford in 1940. The novel, all rendered in Hollinghurst’s characteristically stylish prose, traces shifts in British social mores, attitudes to homosexuality and ideas of privacy through Sparsholt’s journey as a student, war hero and industrialist, as well as a father to a gay and dyslexic son.

Pan Macmillan India, 448 pages, Rs 650