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Content snapshot
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Violence
Barely any
Minimal violence; the AIDS crisis creates an atmosphere of mortality
Language
Some
Adult language in Hollinghurst's literary register
Sexual Content
A lot
Explicit gay sexual content; integral to the novel's world and themes
Substance Use
A lot
Significant cocaine use as part of the period's culture; central to the novel's milieu
Emotional Intensity
Some
The psychological weight of the AIDS crisis as background dread — and the class and social dynamics of Thatcher's England — gives the novel its historical and emotional weight
What this book is about
Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel follows Nick Guest, a graduate student living with a Tory MP's family in 1980s London, as he experiences the excess of the era — cocaine, gay sexuality, and the growing shadow of AIDS. Hollinghurst writes with extraordinary prose beauty; the novel is a portrait of an era and an elegy for what AIDS destroyed. The explicit gay sexual content and the drug use are integral to the novel's world. For adult readers of literary fiction.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
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