Dorian An Imitation

"Writing a whole fin de siecle later, Self has, not surprisingly, upped the sex-and-violence quotient beyond anything Wilde could have dared.... Parallel hunting between one novel and the other makes for readerly pleasure (as near as I can tell, the pretty actress Sibyl Vane, thrown over by the original Dorian, has become Herman, the cute mop-topped addict), but Self would have no chance at all if he couldn't at least hold a candle to Wilde's nonstop cleverness and wordplay. A fool's dare for a writer? Probably; but Self stays in the game to a remarkable extent..." Thomas Mallon, , The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic review)

"The prose is laced with epigrammatic, lightly amusing pseudo-Wildean wit ('I want my sins to be like sushi - fresh, small and entirely raw,' says Wotton), but its wordplay and evocation of debauchery also owe something to Evelyn Waugh and Martin Amis (channeling Hunter Thompson and Irvine Welsh). Self's mannered prose can grow tedious, and there's hardly a sympathetic character to be found, but the writer has undertaken-and largely succeeded in pulling off-a daring act of literary homage." Publishers Weekly

"Naturally, this imitation of Wilde is sprinkled with appropriate bons mots; because of the AIDS milieu, Wotton, the poseur's poseur, comes off as even more tiresome than in the original. It's still a wonderful tale of image and reality, good and evil, with Dorian as plague rather than plague victim." Frank Caso, Booklist