Two of Freddie's friends, Peter Coyle, an artist, and Evert Dax, the son of an influential writer, both see Sparsholt and develop an obsession with him.

In the mid-1960s Johnny Sparsholt, David and Connie's son, is a teenage boy, who is attracted to a French exchange student, Bastien.

Sparsholt's name is infamous due to a sexual scandal involving his father, Cliff, male prostitutes and a minor politician when homosexuality was still deemed illegal several years earlier.

Ivan however is a self-declared gerontophile who is attracted to Dax and who is only interested in Johnny's father and the infamous Sparsholt Affair of a few years ago.

While out at a club for the first time in decades he meets a young Brazilian man, Zé, and as they are about to have sex he receives texts notifying him that his father has died.

Hollinghurst identified the Henry James novella In the Cage as an influence on the work and his decision to give as little detail to the titular affair as possible.

[1] Hollinghurst acknowledged that, like his earlier work The Stranger's Child, the narrative skips over large historical and cultural milestones, stating that he was "interested in [...] the effects of these major things.