The God of Mirrors - Softcover

Oscar Wilde threw himself with dizzying brilliance into the roles of esthete, epigrammatist and lover as if inhabiting one of his own plays. Reilly's polished first novel probes Wilde's consuming infatuation with the cruel, ravishing "Bosie" (Lord Alfred Douglas), whose father hounded the incredibly naive Wilde to jail and to ruin. We get some fine, curmudgeonly lowlife here, as well as hothouse portraits from London in the 1890s: Lady Wilde, Oscar's rouged and tippling mother, roars her poetry; Bernhardt dances Salome. Reilly's eye for decor and color serves his subject admirably. The novel's interiors are deliciously tinted, festooned and lined with mocking mirrors in which people glimpse their fates, either gazing narcissistically or obliquely spying on one another. Writing with beguilingly Wildean wit, Reilly fashions marvelous, pointed conversations that readers won't want to skim for fear of missing a line. This is zippy, compelling fare, executed with grace and compassion. February 8
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The God of Mirrors is Reilly's fictionalized account of Oscar Wilde's most famous and infamous years, when all London flocked to his plays and repeated his witticisms, and when Lord Alfred Douglas became his lover, his inspiration, his obsession, and architect of his downfall. This portrait of a tormented relationship reveals Wilde as a tragic hero, an artist of immense charm and talent, powerless to save himself from the dissipation and corruption to which his fatal attraction to "Bosie" brought him. Writing in Wilde's own epigrammatic style, incorporating some of his most famous bons mots, Reilly has deftly re-created the exotic milieu of his circle of admirers and his friendships with the artists, authors, and thinkers of the age. A highly readable, disturbing, and sensitive first novel. Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.