Dimensions
160 x 241 x 28mm
It's the summer of 1981 and 'The Royal Broodmare', as Henry Wotton has dubbed her, is about to be married to the Prince of Wales, while Brixton is in flames. Wotton, uneasily gay, egregiously drug-addicted and queasily snobbish, and his friend Baz Hallward, a sometime Warhol acolyte and video installation artist, have found a remarkable young man, the very epitome of beauty- Dorian Gray.
Sixteen years later and the princess is dead. As the stock market soars and their T-cell counts plummet, what has happened to Henry and Baz? And what of Dorian? How is it that he remains so youthful while all around him shrivel and die?
Will Self's excoriating new novel is set against the AIDS crises of the 80's and 90's, and is a shameless reworking of our most significant myth of shamelessness.