The Line of Beauty

Description:

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, Toby--whom Nick had idolized at Oxford--and 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 matters of politics and money, becomes caught up in the Feddens' world--its 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 beauty--a prize as compelling to him as power and riches 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 drastically and bring into question the larger fantasies of a ruthless decade. Framed by the two general elections that returned Margaret Thatcher to power, The Line of Beauty unfurls 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.

subjects: LGBTQ novels,  coming of age,  domestic fiction,  psychological fiction,  fiction,  Man Booker Prize Winner,  Male friendship,  Gay men,  Homosexuels masculins,  Legislators,  Jeunes hommes,  Married people,  Amitié masculine,  award:man_booker_prize=2004,  Romans, nouvelles,  Parlementaires,  University of Oxford Alumni and alumnae,  Classes sociales,  Anciens élèves,  Couples mariés,  Riches,  Young men,  Social classes,  Rich people,  Novel,  Alumni and alumnae,  University of Oxford,  Fiction - General,  Gay,  Literary,  Fiction / General,  General,  Fiction, psychological,  Married people, fiction,  Gay men, fiction,  London (england), fiction,  Friendship, fiction,  Fiction, family life,  Fiction, coming of age,  Great britain, fiction,  Fiction, general,  Stonewall Book Awards,  Nineteen eighties,  Social life and customs,  Manners and customs,  Fiction, family life, general,  Fictional Works

People: Nick Guest,  Margaret Thatcher,  Peter Crowther,  Gerald Fedden,  Rachel Fedden,  Toby Fedden,  Catherine Fedden

Places: England,  Notting Hill,  London,  University of Oxford

Times: 1983-1987