It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest, an innocent in matters of politics and money, has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens; Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children, Toby and Catherine.
As the boom years of the mid-80s unfold, Nick becomes caught up in the Feddens'world, while also pursuing his own private obsession,with beauty - a prize as compelling to him as power and riches are to his friends. An early affair with a young black council worker gives him his first experience of romance; but it is a later affair, with a beautiful millionaire, that brings into question the larger fantasies of a ruthless decade.
"A novel so exquisitely written that at times it feels almost as if it could dispense with plot and characters and exist on a plane of pure perception and connotation. It doesn"t, of course, and it ably depicts the high-days of a boom society and the ambiguous charm of being both insider and cuckoo in the nest. But its delights and rewards extend beyond its comic or documentary achievements and are to be found in its author"s almost uncanny apprehension of the world he observes"
--Alex Clark, The Sunday Times
"A novel which, though richly textured, has the ring of simple human truth. The book is Jamesian in the best sense; indeed, in some ways, Hollinghurst surpasses his master. His prose is both super-elegant and super-succinct" David Robson, Sunday Telegraph "Magnificent . . . There are literally thousands of impeccably nuanced touches. HoUinghurst is living proof that the vaulting daims made by the Master on bchalf of the novel - "the force and beauty of its process" - still hold good today"
--Geoff Dyer, Daily Telegraph
"There is something memorable on every page.., there is much to savour in The Line of Beauty, not least its humour, a shivering yet morally exacting satire that leaves no character untouched"
--Henry Hitchings, Times Literary Supplement
