The New Life

A Novel

By: Tom Crewe

Narrated by: Freddie Fox

Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, and the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and The Times (London) • The Sunday Times (London) Novel of the Year • Shortlisted for the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and the Polari Prize • Selected for Kirkus Review’s Best Fiction Books of the Year

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 husband’s sexuality and her own role in life; Henry and Edith’s 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: “What’s worth jeopardizing in the name of progress?” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice).

©2023 Thomas Crewe. All rights reserved. (P)2023 Penguin Audio. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"British actor Freddie Fox gives a riveting performance of this historical novel. In 1894 London, Henry and John set out to write a scientific book criticizing Britain's unjust sodomy laws. They each have personal reasons for the undertaking, and when Oscar Wilde is arrested in the middle of it, the trial brings the tension between them to a head. Fox’s narration is brimming with life and movement; listening to it feels like watching a play. He gives Henry and John wonderfully distinct voices that highlight their different personalities and takes equal care with the rest of the characters. His attention to detail, along with his ability to capture the smallest shifts in accent and tone, is sublime. A triumphant performance of a complex, thought-provoking book." (AudioFile Magazine)

Poetic Prose

Beautifully written. The epilogue is most informative. Freddie Fox did a fantastic job as narrator.

Beautifully written. Great performance!

I’ve listened to this twice. It was even better the second time through. The window into the minds of turn of the century people trying to navigate their sexuality when it was against the law and barely acknowledged was fascinating. The author writes beautiful prose. The super sensual sex scenes were some of the hottest and best written that I’ve encountered.
The reader delivers a nuanced and thoroughly enjoyable performance, creating a cast of easily distinguishable characters.

Captivating

Best audio book i have ever listened to. The reader is expressive. The writing is exquisite. A glimpse of the hurdles gays had to face in 1890 England is both inspiring and sad.

Freddie Fox does a stellar job

fascinating historical fiction with lots of details based on actual people and events but also gorgeous writing about sex and sexuality in Victorian England. a must read (and wonderful listen)!

Except story and narration

What an enjoyable story. Great character development and great research on the topic. One is really immersed in the tensions and struggles of the time dealing with the important issue to individual freedom and expression. Loved it!

Brilliant historical fiction

A fictionalized account of the publication of a book on homosexuality (sexual inversion) in men in Victorian England at the time of Oscar Wilde's libel trial, but really so much more.

This is definitely going to be one of my favorite books of 2023. I highly recommend the audio, Freddie Fox does an amazing job bringing it to life and has a great interview with the author at the end of the book.

Tom Crewe does an amazing job making Victorian England feel simultaneously itself and now, the characters are real and to be honest, society has changed a lot less than most of us would like to believe. Oscar Wilde is living like it's 2023 and gets busted for it, which impacts the writers and thinkers trying to bring England's policies into 2023. It's a pickle. People who want change have to time their moves just right, have to mind the company they keep and their personal lives, and a lot of the book you feel like you're on the edge of a knife. Ellis and Addington are both married to women (Ellis is married to but living separately from his wife Edith in an attempt to model "The New Life," a more liberal approach at relationships, and Addington's marriage to Catherine is falling apart as their youngest child leaves the house and he can't contain his urge to express his love with a man), and the way Crewe explores their lives so well. Addington is gay and married to a woman and they are both so lonely and feel so wronged, it is palpable and wrings your heart out. Addington is so frustrated with the stupid laws, being trapped in his life, and his friends telling him to chill out and not be so obvious. He is bursting at the seams to live freely, at almost 50 years old he's so tired of hiding. He is constantly chafing against this leash everyone is putting on him. His wife is lonely, isolated, and worried about the effect of his lifestyle on their daughters. Ellis is so shy it's painful, and his wife Edith is living her best lesbian life because she's protected in a way by that marriage, and because there are no laws against "sexual inversion" in women.

No spoilers but one of the issues that arises is a free speech issue around banning books, which of course is a current issue. And while on the subject of current issues, I do think that Crewe wrote this book as a mirror for our current era but it does not feel anachronistic. The language and characters feel accurate to the time.

Crewe did choose to leave out some details about the historical figures who he modeled these characters on, which I agree was wise but elides some of the COMPLETE WEIRDNESS of Victorian times (though John's friend Mark is into contacting spirits, one of my fave Victorian hobbies). Addington advocated for pederasty and Ellis for eugenics, in fact his feminist ideas were based in eugenics. Yikes! If those had been left in, the book would have felt way less modern, which would have been to its detriment. But he did leave in Ellis's fetish which provided such a wonderful dimension to his character and really emphasized how absurd it is to punish people for sodomy (not that the fetish is bad, but that singling out one consensual act for punishment is so stupid). And yes, Crewe includes some sex, which is great because some of it is just fun to read but also it does so much to show the feelings of the characters. Ellis's inexperience and John's yearning are both such big parts of their personalities.

I just loved the book so much and I highly recommend it. A fave.

A fascinating glimpse into history

Two authors set out to collect case studies of homosexual males in the time of Oscar Wilde. The characters are well drawn and the plot (based on actual events) is engaging. I loved the description and the performance of the reader raises it to the next level.

A major new writer

Gorgeous, sensuous language serving vividly drawn characters, a brilliantly and deeply imagined world and an underlying seriousness of purpose.
Can’t wait for his next book

Fascinating and amazingly done!

What a terrific surprise. Educational, enjoyable and thought provoking. Can’t wait for more from Tom Crewe.

Brilliant Novel with a Fabulous Reading

What a wonderful, historical novel written with care and delicacy. The characters are rich and authentic and the period details are closely observed. The way current events -- in this case Oscar Wilde's trial -- can so influence the path of one's individual life and work was particularly interesting; this subject isn't often depicted in such a clear and nuanced way. I loved Freddie Fox's performance and he did an excellent job with the women's voices too which can be problematic in many book readings. Btw, there is a terrific interview by the author with Freddie (after the too long list of references) which is well worth listening to.