The Line of Beauty (2004)

The Line of Beauty is a 1980s-set novel covered the peak years of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative rule and the growth of the AIDS crisis. It focuses on Nick Guest, a recent Oxford graduate writing his PhD on Henry James. Now living in a Notting Hill townhouse belonging to the parents of his college friend (and crush) Toby Fedden. The patriarch of the family is Thatcher-obsessed MP Gerald Fedden, married to Rachel and also father to Catherine, a troubled character who forms a closer bond with Nick.