The Mystery of Love
Andrew Meehan
This second novel from Andrew Meehan gives us the life of Oscar Wilde from the one person actually closest to him, his wife Constance. In name and nature she was always there. Here she takes centre stage and Meehan gives her voice, reimagining this dysfunctional but very Victorian relationship, challenging a century of assumption, bias and slur to give us a thoroughly modern insight into this most dedicated of Irish couples.
The lens of history distorts Wilde for us, making him things he may never have been, but this energetic ride though the Wilde marriage is engaging and fun. Opening with Constance in Italy, having changed her name and removed their children to a safe distance from the scandal surrounding Oscar she reflects on her life with him. Her voice is completely believable and as she explored the discomfort of living in Oscar’s shadow we begin to understand the complex layers of love this most conscious of couplings enclosed.
From the first moments of their meeting Constance is alive to the possibility of escaping the crushing conformity of her deeply unpleasant family, and Meehan give us a fully rounded women of her time, filled with a longing for mental intellectual stimulation and physical desire. She also comes across as pretty cynical, which perhaps is more of a reflection of the experience of scandal, than of her character before things changed so much.
The book examines the devotion and tension at the heart of this marriage and also forensically pars back each secret, delusion and protective habit to give us first flesh, bone, then the marrow of the Wildes’ marriage. Its deliciously done, with some very crisp and brutal prose, as is fitting for the subjects, showing Constance to have as much wit and fury as the famous epigramist himself. I rather liked her, I also loved the way that Oscar interjects to Constance’s opinions by * embedded in the text, he becomes a literal footnote!
Out now £18.99 Hardback & paperback
for more info or to buy the book see the publishers website here
You must be logged in to post a comment.