By Alan Hollinghurst
Parul Sehgal, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 1, 2011
“The Stranger’s Child,” Alan Hollinghurst’s first book since “The Line of Beauty,” the 2004 Man Booker Prize winner, is a sly and ravishing masterpiece. The novel skips with indecent ease through 100 years of British political and literary history, concealing its mighty ambition in charm and louche wit.
It’s a devastating history of gay love, erasure and resilience. It’s also a ripping yarn, a simple love (or rather, lust — Hollinghurst’s characters are too arch, too Wildean for love) story as literary whodunit: “Brideshead Revisited” crossed with “Possession.”
