I read Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.
Charles Ryder meets Sebastian Flyte at Oxford and becomes friends with him and his family. Sebastian's parents are separated. His father, Lord Marchmain, lives in Venice. His mother, Teresa, and siblings live at the family estate called Brideshead. His mother is a devoted Roman Catholic and will not divorce her estranged husband.
Sebastian is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and spends a night in the clink. His drinking becomes worse and his family's attempts to chaperone him fail.
Sebastian travels to Morocco and drinks himself sick. Charles delivers news that Teresa has died but he shows no reaction. He joins a monastery but remains addicted to alcohol for the rest of his life.
Charles quits Oxford, attends art school and becomes an architectural painter. More than ten years later, he divorces his wife and plans to marry Sebastian's sister, Julia, who is separated from her husband.
Lord Marchmain becomes ill and returns to Brideshead to die. He bequeaths the estate to Julia instead of his eldest son, Lord Brideshead. Moved by her father's deathbed reversion to Catholicism, Julia ends her taboo relationship with Charles.
Charles joins the military, revisits Brideshead and reveals a surprising secret.
