Truly
Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar's Unusual Niece by
Joan Schenkar
She was lovely,
sophisticated, and famous for her witty conversation, even in a
social circle that was known for its fabulous talkers. The only
child of Oscar Wilde's dissipated older brother Willie, Dolly
Wilde (1895-1941) led a life as scandalous and glittering as her
uncle's: she, too, loved her own sex, and her longest romantic
relationship was with American heiress Natalie Clifford Barney,
who was host of the most important Parisian literary salon of the
20th century. Unfortunately for Dolly's posthumous reputation, she
"was an artist of the spoken word" whose only written
legacy was her marvelous correspondence. Quoting liberally and
perceptively from those letters, American playwright Joan Schenkar
brings Wilde to life in a modernist biography that is written in
prose as sparkling as Dolly's fabled bons mots. Schenkar
eschews conventional chronology to consider Wilde's life
thematically, from her lesbianism to her taste for smart society
to her self-destructive identification with Uncle Oscar. She
reminds us just how remarkable and accomplished were the women at
Barney's salon (journalist Janet Flanner, novelist Djuna Barnes,
and artist Mina Loy, among them) and how much they esteemed Dolly
Wilde. Yet, her biographer downplays neither Wilde's addiction to
drugs nor the sad loneliness of her death (possibly from a drug
overdose) at age 45. This is essentially a tale of
"squandered gifts and lost opportunities," Schenkar
acknowledges, but she successfully provokes readers to share her
admiration for Wilde's prodigal generosity with both her talent
and her affections. --Wendy Smith
