The New Life
A Novel
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4.4 • 39 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the Sunday Times Young Writer Award, the Betty Trask Prize, and the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and The Times (London) • The Sunday Times (London) Novel of the Year • Shortlisted for the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction, the Polari Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction • Selected for Kirkus Reviews’s Best Fiction Books of the Year
A captivating and “remarkable” (The Boston Globe) debut that “brims with intelligence and insight” (The New York Times), about two marriages, two forbidden love affairs, and the passionate search for social and sexual freedom in late 19th-century London.
In the summer of 1894, John Addington and Henry Ellis begin writing a book arguing that homosexuality, which is a crime at the time, is a natural, harmless variation of human sexuality. Though they have never met, John and Henry both live in Victorian London with their wives, Catherine and Edith, and in each marriage, there is a third party: John has a lover, a working-class man named Frank, and Edith spends almost as much time with her friend Angelica as she does with Henry. John and Catherine have three grown daughters and a long, settled marriage, over the course of which Catherine has tried to accept her husband’s sexuality and her own role in life; Henry and Edith’s marriage is intended to be a revolution in itself, an intellectual partnership that dismantles the traditional understanding of what matrimony means.
Shortly before the book is to be published, Oscar Wilde is arrested. John and Henry must decide whether to go on, risking social ostracism and imprisonment, or to give up the project for their own safety and the safety of the people they love.
A richly detailed, powerful, and visceral queer historical novel about love, sex, and the struggle for a better world, The New Life brilliantly asks: “What’s worth jeopardizing in the name of progress?” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This auspicious debut from British author Crewe excavates the oppression and criminal punishment of gay men in 1890s England. Set in London, the story depicts a collaboration between wealthy author John Addington, 49, and physician/essayist Henry Ellis, 30, on a book about the taboo subject of homosexuality. John and his wife are sexually estranged, and he brings his lover, Frank, 28, to live in his family house. Henry has an unconsummated marriage with Edith, who lives separately with her female lover. John's and Henry's completed study, Sexual Inversion, is full of anonymous case studies and testimonials, and it amounts to an argument for sexual freedom for gay men. Their decision to publish, especially so close to Oscar Wilde's highly publicized conviction for a same-sex affair, has far-reaching ramifications for John. The work, though, goes largely unnoticed until a London bookseller, who is being spied on for having radical beliefs, is arrested for selling the book, which, according to the charges, is "lewd, wicked, bawdy, scandalous, and obscene libel." As the bookseller's trial approaches, John's family life implodes; he becomes reckless, and his behavior panics Henry, who makes a decision that influences the trial. Crewe uses meticulously researched period details to great effect, and rounds out the narrative with solid characters and tight pacing. Readers will look forward to seeing what this talented author does next.
Customer Reviews
Well written and engrossing novel
This rings true today.
Gripping Tale
A gripping tale of a pivotal moment in sexual science and cultural change. The story and characters are riveting. The descriptions are telescopic, bringing another world to life. A must read.