Angleterre, XIXe siècle. John Addington, grand bourgeois londonien, père de famille, est tourmenté par son attirance pour les hommes. Henry Ellis, d'origine plus modeste, marié à une femme brillante
After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John has finally found a man who returns his feelings. Meanwhile, Henry is convinced that his new unconventional marriage will bring freedom.United by a shared vision, they begin work on a revolutionary book arguing for the legalisation of homosexuality.Before it can be published however, Oscar Wilde is arrested and their daring book threatens to throw them, and all around them, into danger. How high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living?
A captivating and remarkable (The Boston Globe) debut that brims with intelligence and insight (The New York Times), about two marriages, two forbidden love affairs, and the passionate search for social and sexual freedom in late 19th-century London.In the summer of 1894, John Addington and Henry Ellis begin writing a book arguing that homosexuality, which is a crime at the time, is a natural, harmless variation of human sexuality. Though they have never met, John and Henry both live in London with their wives, Catherine and Edith, and in each marriage, there is a third party: John has a lover, a working-class man named Frank, and Edith spends almost as much time with her friend Angelica as she does with Henry. John and Catherine have three grown daughters and a long, settled marriage, over the course of which Catherine has tried to accept her husbands sexuality and her own role in life; Henry and Ediths marriage is intended to be a revolution in itself, an intellectual partnership that dismantles the traditional understanding of what matrimony means.Shortly before the book is to be published, Oscar Wilde is arrested. John and Henry must decide whether to go on, risking social ostracism and imprisonment, or to give up the project for their own safety and the safety of the people they love.A richly detailed, powerful, and visceral novel about love, sex, and the struggle for a better world, The New Life brilliantly asks: Whats worth jeopardizing in the name or progress? (The New York Times Book Review, Editors Choice).
1894, Londres. El anhelo por un futuro mejor, capaz de dar cabida a unos sentimientos por entonces prohibidos, une a John y a Henry —ambos atrapados en relaciones acechadas por la culpa y la verguenza—, en la escritura de un libro que iba a desafiar los usos y costumbres de toda una epoca.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaJohn y Henry deberan decidir si llevan a cabo la publicacion de su libro, arriesgandose al ostracismo social y a penas de carcel, o bien renuncian a todo cuanto son y sienten en pos de su propia seguridad y la de aquellos a los que siempre han amado. Ante las consecuencias de su eleccion, ambos autores, tambien sus seres mas queridos, se veran obligados a preguntarse que precio estan dispuestos a pagar por una nueva manera de vivir.