The New Life

October 10, 2022
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. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary.

March 10, 2023
Set in Victorian London in the 1890s, Crewe's lifelike novel follows two sets of characters living at the vanguard of social progress. Henry, an academic-minded doctor with a secret kink, is drawn to Edith, a novelist who delivers feminist lectures and prizes her independence and close attachments to women. They embark on a marriage that is a kind of idealistic social experiment involving the maintenance of separate households, but finding the right balance proves elusive. John is a progressive essayist and middle-aged father of three grown daughters who is growing dissatisfied with his marriage as he becomes more comfortable with his gay desires. When he meets Frank, a handsome younger man who reciprocates his feelings, it inspires him to pursue a more honest life. Henry and John set out to research and write a groundbreaking book about homosexuality, but just before it's due to be published, the Oscar Wilde scandal erupts and makes publication a far riskier proposition. When a radical bookseller is arrested for selling a copy of the book, the main characters are set on a potential collision course with English law and social opinion, and debut novelist Crewe expertly ratchets up the tension. Inspired by true events, this potent drama illuminates an origin story of the early gay rights movement.

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Starred review from November 1, 2022
Two Englishmen dare to challenge Victorian-era homophobia. In 1894, John Addington, a well-off married man with three daughters, can no longer deny his attraction to men. Henry Ellis, a virgin who's studied to be a doctor and has an academic interest in sex, has married Edith, a young bisexual writer, and they soon invite another woman into their relationship. (The quasi-throuple is almost as scandalous as his fetish for watching women urinate.) Coincidence and a shared enthusiasm for Walt Whitman connect John and Henry, and though they never meet, they begin to collaborate via letters on a kind of proto-Kinsey report about the lives of gay British men. At that time, gay men were subject to two years to life in prison if found out; to publish a book on homosexuality courted additional calamities. (The plot integrates Oscar Wilde's 1895 trial, conviction, and imprisonment for "gross indecency.") Crewe, an editor at the London Review of Books, deftly captures the atmosphere when "the law frightens us into lies," as John puts it. (John's betrayed wife is especially well drawn.) The novel's plot is loosely based on the lives of two pioneering researchers on homosexuality: John Addington Symonds and Havelock Ellis. But the novel is equally inspired by works by Alan Hollinghurst like The Stranger's Child (2011), models for British fiction about gay men that's intellectual, erotic, and wise to the nuances of the British class ladder. Crewe has his own rich and engrossing style, though, and his own approach to plot dynamics, concluding the story with a dramatic trial sequence that captures a mood of both frustration and defiance, blending the graceful ambiguity of literary fiction with the deftness of a page-turner. A smart, sensual debut.

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