It is 1981 and the "Royal Broodmare", as Henry Wotton calls her, is about to be married. Wotton, an uneasy homosexual and an egregious drug-addict, and his friend Baz have found a remarkable young man Dorian Gray, the epitome of male beauty. 16 years later and the Princess is dead. As the stock market soars and their T-cell counts plummet, what has happened to Henry and Baz? And how does Dorian remain so youthful? Will Self's excoriating new novel is set against the AIDS crises of the '80s and '90s, and is a shameless reworking of our most shameless classic novel.