The Line of Beauty

Description

It is the summer of 1983, and twenty-year-old Nick Guest has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby--whom Nick had idolized at Oxford--and Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions, who becomes both a friend to Nick and his uneasy responsibility. As the boom years of the mid-eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in matters of politics and money, becomes caught up in the Feddens' world--its grand parties, its surprising alliances, its parade of monsters both comic and menacing. In an era of endless possibility, he finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession with beauty--a prize as compelling to him as power and riches to his friends. An affair with a young black clerk gives him his first experience of romance, but it is a later affair with a beautiful millionaire that will change his life drastically and bring into question the larger fantasies of a ruthless decade. Framed by the two general elections that returned Margaret Thatcher to power, The Line of Beauty unfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly funny, this is a major work by one of our finest writers.

First Sentence

PETER CROWTHER'S BOOK on the election was already in the shops.

Description

One of the most critically acclaimed books of 2004, <i>The Line of Beauty</i> is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money that brings Thatcher's London alive. Nick Guest has moved in with the Feddens, a family whose patriarch is a conservative Member of Parliament. An innocent in matters of politics and money, Nick becomes caught up in the Feddens' world of parties and excess, as well as in his own privat pursuit of beauty. Framed by the two general elections that returned Margaret Thatcher to power, <i>The Line of Beauty</i> unfurls through four exrraordinary years of change and tragedy. --back cover

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Line of Beauty: A NovelPaperbackBloomsbury2005-01-01
• The Line of BeatyHardcoverBloomsbury2004-01-01
• The line of beautyPicador2004-01-01
• The Line of BeautyHardcoverPicador2004-01-01
• The Line of BeautyPaperbackPicador2005-01-01
• Linii︠a︡ krasotyROSMĖN2005-01-01