In his new novel, Alan Hollinghurst, author of Booker Prize-winning The Line of Beauty, follows the fortunes of two upper-class English families through the twentieth century. Find out more, and read a free Opening Extract at Lovereading.co.uk The Omnivore has rounded up all the press reviews for The Stranger's Child to bring you a handy critical digest:   .
It's easy for a novelist to sneer at his own creations: they have no surprises in store. Here, though, we marvel at the effort of imaginative sympathy that makes his characters inhabit the moment. He is particularly alert with the old, and mothers. Nicola Shulman
If he has a weakness it is a tendency to over-describe; to seek to convey each and every subtle shift in mood, tone, inflection and nuance. The overall effect is charming and you admire the artistry but it can also be enervating... Jason Cowley
[It] falls somewhat short of Hollinghurst's best work ... Is this an ungrateful line of criticism? Probably: The Stranger's Child will no doubt be one of the best novels published this year. Theo Tait
It is a rare thing to read a novel buoyed up by the certainty that it will stand among the year's best, but rarer still to become confident of its value in decades to come ... a remarkable, unmissable achievement. Richard Canning
Aesthetically, The Stranger's Child is probably the best novel this year so far, but it fails to move Hollinghurst on to the next level. Amanda Craig
There is a certain amount of slovenly plotting ... The Stranger's Child is also curiously uninterested in history ... too often [Hollinghurst] overburdens his conversations with stultifying commentary. Jonathan Beckman.
In some ways, The Stranger's Child is a full-dress display of Hollinghurst's virtuosity, as a lyricist and an elegist, as a writer of set pieces, as a pasticheur, as a describer of homosexual longing and early-summer rapture. Yet it is also a broken-backed and anti-dramatic novel that contains a good deal of complacent brushstrokes next to the beautiful ones. Leo Robson
[An] affecting, erudite novel ... It is the signal achievement of The Stranger's Child to show that, despite the silence in which relationships like that of Cecil and George were shrouded, their influence has echoed on through the years, as an unconscious pattern for other friendships and love affairs. Hari Kunzru
This is an exercise in realism of a dazzlingly high order: it really does seem to be observed rather than imagined ... an extraordinary achievement. Sam Leith
... in a daring act of appropriation he has interpolated within a history of textual ellipses, lacunae and silences a secret history of homosexuality, of what can and cannot be articulated at different historical junctures. Neel Mukherjee
Read a Free Opening Extract of The Stranger's Child on Lovereading.co.uk ________________________________________________________________________ Want to know what the critics made of the latest book, film or play? The Omnivore rounds up newspaper reviews, bringing you a cross section of intelligent opinion.