A friend I respect recommended this novel to me, so I bought it without knowing anything more than that it had something to do with Oscar Wilde and his family. I’m ashamed to admit that, despite being a literature major in college, I had no idea that Wilde had a wife and two sons (perhaps because I was educated at a very conservative college that would NEVER dream of teaching this particular writer).
As is appropriate for a novel about a playwright, this story is told in five acts. The first act recounts, from the point of view of Wilde’s wife Constance, a seemingly idyllic summer holiday in the country. Idyllic, that is, until Constance gradually realizes that the relationship between Oscar and one of their guests—Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquess of Queensberry (the man who came up with the rules of boxing)—is more distressingly intimate than she’d suspected.
A brief entr’acte summarizes the scandal that ensued after Queensberry, offended by what he viewed as the corruption of his son, accused Wilde of sodomy. Wilde sued him for defamatory libel, but Queensberry was able to produce evidence that the charge was true. Wilde was convicted of gross indecency for homosexual acts and sentenced to two years hard labor. The punishment destroyed his health, and he died a few years later.
The remainder of the novel examines the effect of the scandal on his family. Act two focuses on Constance’s time in Italy, where she fled under an assumed name (Holland) to protect her boys from the scandal. She was suffering a debilitating illness that was poorly understood at the time and also died too young. Act three focuses on the eldest son, Cyril Holland, and his time as a sniper in World War I, a military assignment that led to his death. In this telling, he is determined to maintain a gruff, “manly” demeanor to differentiate himself from his father. Act four focuses on the younger son Vyvyan Holland in later life and a confrontation with the man whose relationship with Oscar Wilde destroyed the family. The fifth act is speculative, so I won’t describe it except to say that it moved me deeply.
I enjoyed the innovative structure and the opportunity to learn about this aspect of Oscar Wilde’s life. He was an original thinker and an astute observer of society, and I can only wonder what literary gems we lost because he was persecuted to an early death. I recommend the novel to lovers of historical fiction, English literature, and LGBTQ+ issues.
Ruth Hull Chatlien 