The Stranger's Child [Paperback]

A National Book Critics Award finalist from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty andThe Sparsholt Affair: a magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations.
 
In the summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge schoolmate—a handsome, aristocratic young poet named Cecil Valance—to his family’s home outside London. George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him. That weekend, Cecil writes a poem that, after he is killed in the Great War and his reputation burnished, will become a touchstone for a generation, a work recited by every schoolchild in England. Over time, a tragic love story is spun, even as other secrets lie buried—until, decades later, an ambitious biographer threatens to unearth them.

Remarkable. . . . Daring. . . . Fresh and vital. —The New York Times Book Review
 
Hollinghurst is a master storyteller. . . . For the daring of its setting out, and for the consistent flash and fire of the writing,The Stranger’s Childis to be cherished. —John Banville,The New Republic
 
At once classically literary and delightfully, subversively modern. . . . It’s a thrilling, enchanting work of art. —San Francisco Chronicle
 
Brilliant. . . . Hollinghurst [has] a truly Jamesian fineness of perception. . . . [He is] one of the best novelists at work today. —The Wall Street Journal

A sly and ravishing masterpiece. —Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
Magnificent. . . . Hollinghurst explores how a living, breathing existence can become a biographical subject riddled with omissions and distortions. . . . His immersion in each period is fluid and free of false notes, collectively fusing into a single symphonic epic. . . . A beautifully written, brilliantly obselb