Thirty years ago, I appeared on Oprah’s television show to discuss the memoir I had published about my marriage, which ended in widowhood “due to complications of AIDS.” A few weeks before the taping, the producer called to see if I could help find other guests: other women who, like me, had married gay men. Actually, I couldn’t think of any.
My story was not a common one, or if it was, it wasn’t openly discussed. Times have changed, though, and I’ve been meeting women with complicated marriages, similar to mine, in popular culture. First, Leonard Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre, played so beautifully by Carey Mulligan in “ Maestro .
” And now, Constance Wilde, brought to life by Louis Bayard in his witty and heartbreaking new novel, “The Wildes.” Bayard has been doing great things with gay-centric versions of historical fiction for a couple of books now, namely “Jackie and Me” and “ Courting Mr. Lincoln .
” With “The Wildes,” he flips the narrative, portraying a famously gay person through the lens of the straight people in his life. He opens with a prologue consisting of a single famous love letter, written by Oscar to Constance in 1884. “[M]y soul and body seem no longer mine, but mingled in some exquisite ecstasy with yours,” he writes.
Eight years later, the thrill is most definitely gone. In a long first section, styled as “Act One: Wildes in the Country,” the family of four is vacationing with Oscar’s mother and another c.