Given his interest in reconjuring lost Englands, it is fitting that Alan Hollinghurst passes his days alongside one of its best-preserved anachronisms. Hollinghurst’s home abuts Hampstead Heath, the great grassy eruption that bestrides north London, its woodland ancient and indifferent to besieging urban sprawl. The Heath has known many uses through the centuries, from Norman pig farm to aristocratic residency to (as memorably depicted in Hollinghurst’s Booker prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty) gay cruising waterpark. Hollinghurst’s home looks out over the base of the Heath’s Parliament Hill, the view of its ascent filling his two large sitting room windows.
I visit early one overcast afternoon to discuss his new novel, Our Evenings, and to look back on one of the most acclaimed careers in modern English letters. Hollinghurst buzzes me past the entryphone with a booming cheeriness (he was nicknamed “Basso Profundo” in the 1980s on account of his rich and operatic voice). He is eager to chat – his publicity tour was knocked off course by a bout of Covid a few weeks ago – and addresses me with warm brown eyes and a mirthful smile, encircled by a neat grey beard.
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