Will Self

A contemporary retelling of the themes in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray finds homosexual and drug addict Henry Wotton at the center of a clique that includes his artist friend, Hallward, and the beautiful young Dorian, in a story set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic. Reprint.

An Imitation

Dorian

Emmett

A wicked and very satisfying homage. Twisted, clever and tongue-in-cheek, it goes beyond reproducing a classic work, adding fresh detail and essentially enacting its rebirth in new times. Self's sense of humour is to die for, as is his ice-water plunge of Wilde's highly ornate novel into a squalid realism.

Effie W

In the summer of 1981, aristocratic, drug-addicted Henry Wooten and Warhol-acolyte Baz Hallward meet Dorian Gray. Dorian is a golden Adonis - perfect, pure and (so far) deliciously uncorrupted. The subject of Baz's video installation, Cathode Narcissus, and the object of Henry's attentions, Dorian is launched on a hedonistic binge that spans the '80s and '90s. But as Baz and Henry succumb to the Aids epidemic, how is it that Dorian, despite all his sexual and narcotic debauchery, remain so unsullied - so vibrantly alive?

Dorian An Imitation

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