Book Review: "The New Life" by Tom Crewe

I have to be perfectly honest, when I read the words 'Oscar Wilde' on the blurb, I was immediately sold. I found this book in a 'buy one get one free' offer at my local bookstore and the fact that it had won some awards was just a plus to everything else. By 'everything else' I mean the great storyline I had read on the blurb, the great smell of the book which reminded me of the books that sit on the shelf at the Café Nero. When I started reading the book I was honestly surprised at how engrossed I was and ended up finishing it within only some short hours of the night. The writing is absolutely beautiful and the story is immersive as hell. I have to say, whatever this book has won in terms of literary prizes, it truly deserves all of them. It is fantastic.

At the centre of the plot is the hostility and homophobia of Victorian London. A character named John Addington is a gay man and a writer. His marriage to a woman is starting to tear him apart and his closeted life is becoming more and more difficult to hide day by day. He is aware of how he deceives his wife and daughters and he is noticeably upset by it. Deciding to set off on his own and break away from all of this deception and shielding. Along with a doctor named Henry Ellis, they begin to write a book about the science and experiences of gay men and how it is different to that of straight men. You can imagine what this would mean in the Victorian Era, which was not known for its progressive thinking.

Tom Crewe's ability to present the dichotomy between the present and future of British society is really well written. We understand today that being gay for people who are gay is just a fact of their lives that doesn't change the way we feel about them at all. They are just other people and its all very normal. But in the Victorian era, this was not the case. Tom Crewe presents not just the danger of being gay in this society but also presents the ridiculousness of the fears people had about it. I liken it to the whole 'Satanic Panic' thing of the 1970s. Honestly, it is ridiculous beyond words but the people who think like that are not the smartest people you had ever met either. It is a dangerous mix of things going on that can destabilise other people's lives - especially when they are already marginalised.

Another thing I thought was pretty well done in this novel was the fact that Oscar Wilde's trial played a key role in the plot and doesn't just get shoehorned in for impact. It serves as that great reminder to the reader about how backward the Victorian Society truly is and how it is also completely contradictory of itself. For example: children could be in full-time work that was often dangerous and exhausting for long hours without work protections, but it was gay people who went to prison. Without even adding in the dynamics of their religious beliefs in this time, you can already see how terribly horrendous the situation was for many people in a lot of walks of life that were not rich, white and straight (and you had to be all three by the way, not just one).

Yes, I understand that it is set in 1894 in which the real main characters were (I believe) already dead. But, it does include an interesting blend of fact and fiction to create an image that is there to show us the extent of something like homophobia. The true dangers that were not just social, but were a matter of life and death. I was not prepared to see how deep it went but the way each level builds paints us a picture of not just of rebellion and danger, but one of defiance even in the face of the biased and broken Victorian British Justice System.

All in all, I feel like this book is probably one of the more important ones if you want to learn more about the true extent of homophobia in Victorian Britain through not just the justice system, but through the emotions of those who remain closeted and out of the way. This is an intense, chaarcter-driven story which has incredible phases of highs and lows, of brilliant vibrancy and terrifying darkness. If you choose to read this book, it will probably be one of the best things you read this year.