ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Weight of Angels by John Boyne

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne is published by Doubleday and is out now. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.

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Can one rash decision prove the difference between a life well lived and a life destroyed?

When the Marquis of Queensbury left his calling card at the Albemarle Club in February 1895, it bore only his name and five words: ‘For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite’. The famous playwright sued for libel, which led to his arrest, criminal prosecution and imprisonment. From then on, his gilded existence spiralled into public disgrace and an early death.

But what if he had simply ignored the insult?

Rather than dying impoverished in Paris at forty-six, what if he had lived to bear witness to the momentous events and cataclysmic changes at the start of the twentieth century, and even influence some of them? What if the second half of his life were as celebrated, dramatic and tumultuous as the first?

Like Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Percival Everett’s James, John Boyne explores one of the great what-if stories of modern literature, giving the great Anglo-Irish playwright an opportunity to take an entirely different path.

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The Weight of Angels presents an alternative and much longer life of Oscar Wilde. Instead of him suing the Marquess of Queensbury for libel after being accused of being a homosexual, going to prison in 1895 and dying prematurely in 1900, he instead shrugs off the accusation and gets on with his life. Oh, what a rich and varied life John Boyne conjures up for Oscar, one of incredible achievements alongside some of the most pivotal and well-known events of the first half of the twentieth century.

Boyne is one of my favourite authors and I think he could turn the phone book into something worth reading, but I have to admit to being tempted to give up on this book in the early pages. It felt daunting at 600 pages and I knew very little about Oscar Wilde, only the very basic facts. I didn’t know if I would take to Oscar’s voice, his florid prose and flamboyant ways. But then, as I continued to read I began to be captivated by him, his larger-than-life personality and his love of pretty young men and champagne, until his vivid and entertaining way of traversing the world completely bowled me over.

I loved following Oscar through this version of his life, witnessing his successes and mistakes, his loves and losses, and all the people he encountered along the way, many of them very well known names indeed. There’s a chapter set in Los Angeles which is an absolute hoot and one with Virginia and Leonard Woolf which is hilariously bizarre. As with any life, there is sadness too and regrets aplenty, but whatever happened in Oscar’s life, I was engrossed and totally invested.

This is a weighty tome, no doubt about it, but I adored it and when I got to the end I felt a bit lost, unable to imagine life without Oscar and unable to comprehend that the version Boyne created isn’t real. He’s a fully-developed character, full of vim and vigour, beloved by so many and a very talented man. The Weight of Angels is easily one of my favourite reads of the year, written by one great writer about another. It’s simply stunning.

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John Boyne is the author of sixteen novels for adults, six for younger readers, a picture book and a collection of short stories. His 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet and opera. His many international bestsellers include The Heart’s Invisible Furies and A Ladder to the Sky. He has won four Irish Book Awards, including Author of the Year in 2022, along with a host of other international literary prizes, including most recently both the 2025 Prix Femina Étranger and the Prix du Roman FNAC in France for The Elements. His novels are published in sixty languages.