What if Oscar Wilde had lived to 90? Plus nine other books to read

T

his week’s new releases include a reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s life in which the playwright lives into his 90s, a murder mystery involving a family of Byron Bay influencers, and the remarkable story of a slave who became an Ottoman queen. There are also non-fiction titles from big names including Kate Grenville, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and country music legend Willie Nelson. Read on as our critics deliver their verdicts on the latest books to hit our shelves.

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne (Doubleday, $35)
What if Oscar Wilde hadn’t challenged the Marquess of Queensberry’s claim, hadn’t gone to jail, and hadn’t died prematurely under straitened and humiliating circumstances? John Boyne’s The Weight of Angels presents a provocative, beguiling alternative history for the playwright and poet. In his version, Wilde survives and thrives into his 90s, giving him time to continue to be a “troublemaker and a provocateur”. Not only does the great Irish wit pen more successful plays, but he’s also a witness to some of the defining moments of the 20th century (coronations, two world wars, motion pictures).

Boyne brilliantly captures the Wildean voice, complete with epigrams, bon mots and witticisms, as he holds forth on topics and occasions both domestic and grandiose. There are also hilarious cameos from Wilde’s literary peers and enemies, including George Bernard Shaw and Bram Stoker. It may be fiction, but there are enough elements of truth interwoven between the sparkling narrative that, at times, you forget it’s not a quasi-biography. Poignant, smart and funny, this book is highly recommended for those who think Wilde deserved a longer and better life.

Slave Concubine Queen by Sally Neighbour (HarperCollins, $35)
This work of historical fiction comes with a large cast of characters and a map of the Ottoman Empire from 1510 to 1566 to acquaint those unfamiliar with the period. But to be fair, there is a lot to cover in this true story of Roxelana – how she was forced into concubinage, yet managed to rise through the ranks through luck, timing, and cunning to become the wife of the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent.

It starts when Roxelana is 12, her Polish village is razed and she is made a slave, and follows her convoluted journey into becoming not only a sultana but also her contriving to secure the throne for her son. It’s a remarkable story full of colour and intrigue, and deeply researched, judging by the books Sally Neighbour quotes in her afterword. As a work of fiction, the reader has to remember that poetic licence has been taken with various details, such as changed timelines and additional imagined characters. Nonetheless, this is a busy, eventful chapter of history, and a portrait of ambition and survival.

Shot by Shelley Burr (Hachette, $35)
The Crews family has a large online fan base. Subscribers pay to live vicariously through them as they swan around performatively, showing off their aspirational lifestyle in Byron Bay. But during a livestream to thousands, Dahlia and Duncan are killed by a hooded, balaclava-wearing shooter. Their 15-year-old daughter, Karma, is the only survivor, and thereby becomes the subject of suspicion. Six years later, Jennifer, a vlogger who specialises in true crime, is hired to film a documentary about the cold case, with one stipulation: she is to prove Karma’s innocence. Despite her misgivings about being manipulated, she takes on the assignment.

Shot is a topical cautionary tale about the hazards of content creation and the exploitation on social media for clickbait. With her editor friend helping her with the case, Jennifer stays in the murder house and begins the slow, methodical task of making unlikely connections to the family and interviewing plausible suspects. The mystery plays out in the usual fashion, with lies, red herrings and cover-ups to navigate. Shot is Shelley Burr’s fourth book; despite the elaborate plotting, the denouement feels implausible.

Illuminated Ruins by Miriam Sved (Ultimo Press, $35)
Miriam Sved’s biography notes that her mother’s family escaped Europe in the late 1930s and lived in Hong Kong for two decades. Illuminated Ruins draws on this personal heritage to shape key elements of the narrative. Set in Hong Kong in 1956, the novel follows Hungarian-Jewish refugees Uri and Lujza and their children, Millie and Tommy, as they navigate life in the British colony.

Uri and Lujza are both doctors who are granted a level of respect for their occupation, yet still grapple with assimilation. Both live by the edict of never speaking of the war, but the title of the book refers to the remains of a military fort where the children liked to meet and play, although none of them knew “what buildings used to be there or what was done to turn them into this rubble playground”. In careful, measured prose, Sved writes about universal themes of migration: of dislocation and upheaval, and of having to hide aspects of one’s identity and background to start anew.

Inlet Bridge by S.D. Hinton (Transit Lounge, $35)
Sarah and her husband, Ewen, are walking along a narrow bridge in Victoria’s Wilson Cove. A truck passes them and, moments later, Sarah finds herself thrown over the railing and into the water. When she manages to swim to shore, Ewen is nowhere to be found; both he and the truck have vanished. With the police sceptical of her report and the neighbours equally unhelpful, Sarah turns to her brother, Harry, for help. Harry spent 12 years in the Special Forces and has the training to track down a missing person, but he is combative, surly, and weighed down by unresolved grief. Sarah, meanwhile, is deeply averse to confrontation.

Inlet Bridge, S.D. Hinton’s second book, is not just a taut thriller, but an exploration of the trust and bond between siblings under duress. They must learn to navigate each other – his volatility and her timidity – before they can team up to uncover the truth surrounding her husband. Hinton’s characterisations and narration are well executed as the novel builds toward a heart-pumping, violent climax.

Non-fiction

The Law of the Sublime by Robert Greene (Profile Books, $45)
I can’t guarantee that The Law of the Sublime will resonate as powerfully with you as it has with me. But as it deals with the most fundamental and transformative elements of existence, there’s a chance it just might. The sublime is that which takes us out of the narrow confines of our humdrum lives, expands our mental and emotional horizons, and grants us an inkling of infinity.

Robert Greene contends that it is a primal need in all of us, as vital as food, shelter and companionship. To contemplate the astonishing marvels of the cosmos, of evolution, of childhood wonder, of untrammelled consciousness, of nonhuman minds, of aesthetic enchantment and the mystery of mortality is to open ourselves to the transcendent powers of the sublime. While impressively researched, this book is not ultimately concerned with concepts or theories but with how to welcome the sublime in daily experience. At the end of each immersive, well-crafted chapter, Greene presents meditations designed to bring us into contact with a majesty beyond words.

The Last Leaf by Willie Nelson (Canongate, $35)
At 93, Willie Nelson has made a few concessions to age. He’s on the road again but now he allows himself to sit down for a 90-minute set, having discovered it deepens his intimacy with the audience. While many of the reflections in this book are about the stories behind his songs and the great musicians he’s known and played with, the unifying thread is his love for his wife, Annie, whose energy and vigilance have literally kept him alive.

There was only one time when “things got shaky” between them. She was planning to leave him when a Nelson song played over the muzak in a shop she was in, and she realised she couldn’t escape him and didn’t want to. Another enduring relationship in his life is that with his guitar, called Trigger. There’s a guitar in the corner/ That used to have a song/ I would hold it while it played me/ And I would sing along. In prose as down-to-earth, laconic and heartfelt as his lyrics, Nelson reflects on love, loss, gratitude and death.

The Country Schoolmaster by Kate Grenville (Black Inc., $37)
Since the publication of her novel The Secret River, Kate Grenville has been engaged in an extended debate about the merits of fiction versus history in reconstructing the past. While it’s not possible to rehearse the whole argument here, suffice it to say this latest work muses over the impulses and temptations at work in the interpretation of historical documents.

When researching her mother’s story, Grenville came across a bundle of documents in an official file relating to a teacher called Joseph Connor who worked at a country school in the late 1800s. Her attention was caught by “what looked like a campaign to destroy him” in the form of slurs and dubious allegations. At first she was stumped by her inability to get to the bottom of them. Ten years later they were still nagging at her. This intriguing book, which falls somewhere between fact and fiction, reveals Grenville’s mind at work as she puzzles over what might have happened, and is forced to revise her views and reflect on how the hunger for certainty drives the stories we tell ourselves.

Sleeping Beauties by David Byrne (Canongate, $55)
When David Byrne, lead singer of the band Talking Heads, came across the term “sleeping beauties” used to describe scientific papers that were forgotten and later unearthed or “woken up”, it struck a chord. This, he felt, was an all-too-common phenomenon across a range of fields, flying in the face of the assumption that “masterpieces” or groundbreaking discoveries will automatically be valued and endure. In this idiosyncratic survey, he examines the forces – advocates, luck, cultural changes, war, technological advances and politics – that obscured and then drove the recovery of potent ideas, inventions and works.

For 80 years after his death, Byrne says, Bach’s compositions were regarded merely as practice exercises until the Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn reignited public interest in his music. Janet Sobel, the original drip painter before Jackson Pollock, was eclipsed for 57 years by the macho bravado of the American abstract expressionists before she got her due. Byrne is on a quest to appreciate these neglected ideas and works “with fresh, unbiased eyes”, finding a pattern in their disappearance and re-emergence.

The Lonely Generation by Michelle Lim (Pantera Press, $37)
You only have to cast your mind back to the awkward self-consciousness of adolescence to understand why young people are susceptible to loneliness. Their not-fully-developed brains leave them particularly vulnerable to feelings of rejection, says psychologist Michelle Lim who has dedicated her professional career to addressing loneliness and social isolation. It’s a phenomenon plagued by misconceptions, she says.

This handbook examines these myths, dispels them and looks at how best to respond – as individuals, as families and as a society. The belief that lonely people just need to get off their screens and out into the world frustrates Lim. Simplistic solutions “trivialise the distressing experience of loneliness” and fail to appreciate the biological and psychological, as well as social, factors behind it. Poignant case studies illustrate how loneliness can manifest in young people and serve as positive examples of how it can be overcome.

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.