In Search of Family in The Wildes by Louis Bayard

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My guest today is Louis Bayard, author of The Wildes listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction.

View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ukomPza-Oh0

• Why write about Oscar Wilde through the lens of his family life?
• Inspiration for the novel from the memoir of Vivian Wilde, the youngest of the two sons of Oscar and Constance.
• Challenges of writing about one of the great wits in the English language.
• Structure of The Wildes as a play in five acts in a high comedy register.
• Constance Wilde as the protagonist of the novel, and how she was very progressive for her time, and very much Oscar's equal.
• Lady Wilde (Oscar's mother), the fiery Irish revolutionary poet named Speranza.
• Oscar Wilde and his relationship to women, seeing them as equals.
• What can contemporary audiences learn from The Wildes, particularly the "fifth act" of the novel?
• Reading from The Wildes.
• One thing that Louis learned from writing this novel that he didn't realize before.

Read more about Louis Bayard on his website: https://www.louisbayard.com/

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