The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to Slate's Audio Book Club for March 2018.

I'm Laura Miller, Slate's Books and Culture columnist, and the host for this week's episode.

Today, I'm joined by Slate Plus editorial director, Gabriel Raw.

Hi, Gabe.

Hey, Laura.

And by Alex Barish, Slate's science intern.

Hey, Laura.

Hi, Alex.

Today we'll be discussing the Sparshelt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst.

This is a novel about several generations of gay men,

particularly a father and son. It starts with David Sparshalt entering Oxford University as an

engineering student during World War II and a bunch of other students there becoming obsessed

with his magnificent physique. And it carries on with

the life of his son Johnny, who grows up into a much more out-of-the-closet gay culture in the

70s and up until the present. It's about art and love and society and class. And I think,

I think both of you will agree with me. It's about really amazing sentences. And I'm usually

the kind of person who just goes, don't go on about the sentences. Nobody reads a book for sentences, just like nobody goes

to see a movie for the photography or the lighting. But in a way, these are so good that we'd probably

read this guy writing about a duck pond in Oxfordshire instead of all of this intrigue and sadness and

unrequited love and love discovered when least expected. Okay, so before we dig in, I'm saddened to

say that this will be the last episode of the audio book club, at least for a while.

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