The Spell

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 257. Black cloth boards, lettered in silver to spine; navy-blue endpapers. Jacket photograph by Ewan Fraser.

Signed by Author to title-page.

Hollinghurst's third novel. Set in London and the idyllic English countryside, a comedy of sexual manners that follows the interlocking affairs of four men. As each character falls successively under the spell of romance or drugs, country living or rough trade, a richly ironic picture emerges of the clashing imperatives of gay life – the hunger for contact, the fear of commitment, the need for permanence and the continual disruptions of sex. "A masterpiece of sustained literary titillation." –The Times