The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts by Louis Bayard. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2024. Adult fiction. Most readers know of playwright Oscar Wilde's rather flamboyant life and difficulties that resulted in imprisonment. But, who knew he actually had a wife and two sons? In this creative novel, the author begins in 1892 in a Norfolk house with the family, including his mother, Lady Wilde, and continues into later life. Lord Alfred Douglas shows up and family life falls apart. Bayard fictionalizes Wilde's court case and Constance's striving to make a somewhat normal life for her boys. The boys grow into men who serve England in WWI. Finally, there is a return to the Norfolk house and an imaginative look at what-might-have-been. The novel will certainly have readers who are interested in Wilde running for nonfiction information about these characters!
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