The Coward Does It with a Kiss

by Rohase Piercy

Following Oscar Wilde's imprisonment for gross indecency in 1895, his wife Constance seeks refuge on the Continent with their two young sons. She and her husband are never to meet again. Reading through the diaries in which she recorded her thoughts, feelings and reactions throughout their marriage, she writes an extended letter to Oscar in which she tries to make sense of their shared past, examines the truths and deceptions of their relationship, and searches desperately for insight into her own motivations and identity.

Drawing on the recorded facts of the Wildes' time together and their final years of separate self-imposed exile, Rohase Piercy has recreated the story of their relationship from Constance's viewpoint. This is the memoir Constance Wilde might have written, a moving testimony to a love that was inevitably doomed.

Genres: Historical, Historical Fiction

198 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 1990

About the author

Rohase Piercy was born in London in 1958 and now lives in Brighton (on the South Coast of England) with her husband Leslie, dog Spike and a fluctuating number of racing pigeons. She has two grown-up daughters.
When her debut novel, 'My Dearest Holmes' was published by the Gay Men's Press in 1988 it provoked howls of outrage from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and from the mainstream media - (SHERLOCK HOMO! He's gay in new book!) However times have changed, and during the last ten years or so it has gained an appreciative readership and has been published in Italian (Mio Diletto Holmes, Tre Editori, 2011) and Japanese (Shinshokan, 2015).
At first glance Rohase's writing may seem confusingly diverse, but all of her novels present well known characters, stories or events from an alternative perspective - usually with LGBTQ overtones.

Reviews

[Narrelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this era when we are at last questioning the way that we talk about the consequences for creative men of their own actions (“he’s been accused of behaving monstrously towards women - how will that blight his brilliant career?”) this 1990 book gives Constance Wilde a voice.

Written as a series of letters she never sends to Oscar, Constance reflects on her love for her brilliant husband, how much she knew of his behaviour, and how she feels about him and herself. Its full of compassion as well as anger, self recrimination as well as rage. And love. Superb.