by Will Self
First published 2003
In the summer of 1981, Dorian Gray walks into the lives of two men who will shape his destiny. Henry Wooten, an aristocrat drowning in drugs, and Baz Hallward, a video artist orbiting Andy Warhol's world, both fall under the spell of this golden young man. Dorian becomes the centerpiece of Baz's video installation Cathode Narcissus while Henry draws him into London's hedonistic underground. Through the excess of the 1980s and 1990s, Dorian plunges into every form of sexual and chemical indulgence the decades offer. Yet as his companions fall victim to AIDS and addiction, Dorian remains untouched. His skin stays smooth, his body vital, his beauty unmarked by the destruction around him. The mystery of his preservation becomes more chilling as the bodies pile up and the years pass, leaving Dorian as radiant as the day they met him.
Genres: fiction, addiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century, dark
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, decadence, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: 1980s, 1990s
288 pages · Kindle Edition · Penguin
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, explicit-sexual-content