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There are good, interesting and enlightening things in Frankel's book and I think looking again at Wilde's life, or aspects of it, in the light of new information, perspectives or understanding is good and should be applauded. The problem with this book is that it doesn't set out simply to look at Wilde's life post prison, it sets out with predetermined agenda to see this period in a new way, a more positive way. Any book that is written with predetermined point of view is always suspect as far as I am concerned and, as far as I can see, anyone who has actually reviewed the book rather then use it as an excuse for writing perorations on Wilde is forced to acknowledge that Frankel provides new insights but in his determination to silver linings and positive outlooks in everything he not only over eggs his argument but renders it silly.

That the traditional tale of Wilde's last year's, like his whole life, has needed to be re-examined and many of the old ways of looking at challenged goes without saying but it is important not to rewrite or distort history. His life after prison, his attempts to create a new, etc. is more more varied and complex then the traditional account of despair, decline and destructive behaviour. Wilde had a almost impossible task to face in trying resurrect a life and career after both had been destroyed by prison and scandal. I think Wilde knew from the beginning that a new life and career was impossible but there were times he allowed himself to believe otherwise.

There were no second acts for Victorians forced abroad by scandal the only thing that saved some from an existence like Wilde's was money. If your rich enough you can live comfortably and do what you like as long as you are willing to accept being shunned by respectable society. But social ostracism was far more devastating then we can imagine (look up Bertie Stopford on Wikipedia or read William Clarke's 'Lost Treasures of the Tsars' which tells in part the tragic tale of Stopford, an Edwardian man about town, who was caught up in homosexual scandal in 1919 and was forced to live abroad).

There is plenty of new insights in the book and it is written with sparkle and style but it is flawed by it's rigid insistence on how to view Wilde's post prison life.