Henry Henry

''One of the most exciting new novels'' FINANCIAL TIMES ''Very funny... Its deeply felt pages flew by'' GUARDIAN ''Sexy, compassionate, uncommonly imaginative: I''ve never read anything quite like it'' Oisin McKenna, author of Evenings and Weekends London, 2014. Hal Lancaster - twenty-two, gay, Catholic, chops lines of cocaine with his myWaitrose card - is the reluctant heir of his father Henry, the sixteenth Duke of Lancaster. Henry is half tyrant, half martyr, with an investment in his eldest son that has grown into an obsession. While Hal floats between internships and drinking sessions, Henry keeps him in check with passive-aggression, religious guilt, and a cruelty that Hal sometimes confuses for tenderness. When a grouse shooting accident - funny in retrospect - makes a romance out of Hal''s rivalry with fumblingly leftist family friend Harry Percy, Hal finds that he wants, for the first time, a life of his own. But his father Henry is an Englishman: he will not let his son escape tradition. To save himself, Hal must reckon not only with grief and shame but with the wounds of his family''s past. Elegant and blisteringly funny, Henry Henry is a brilliant recasting of Shakespeare''s history plays for the modern era - for fans of Alan Hollinghurst, Evelyn Waugh and Saltburn .

Product details

• Authors: Allen Bratton
• Publisher: Vintage UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 15.05.2025
• EAN: 9781529931815
• ISBN: 978-1-5299-3181-5
• No. of pages: 336
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; London, Greater London, FICTION / Coming of Age, FICTION / Romance / Contemporary, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Adult & contemporary romance, Fiction: special features, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Romance / Romantic Comedy, FICTION / Christian / General, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Fiction: pastiche, Of specific Gay interest, FICTION / Christian / Romance / General, Relating to gay people, Relating to Christian people and groups, FICTION / LGBTQ+ / Gay, FICTION / Adaptations & Pastiche, FICTION / Romance / LGBTQ+ / General, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, Modern and Contemporary romance, Relating to Shakespeare / Shakespearean, Relating to higher socioeconomic groups / status