In spite of its title, this third novel by Edwards (after Ten Seconds) is not so much about the celebrated Irish wit as about the black valet who accompanied him on his 1882 coast-to-coast American tour. Not much is known about the actual valet, but Edwards imagines him as a privileged son of educated New York City servants. William Traquair has recently graduated from college, and his father, with the help of his employer, a generous white banker, arranges for Traquair to accompany Wilde. Traquair is already an admirer of Wilde's work, and as Wilde prefers to dispense with formalities, the two become friends. Wilde even adopts some of Traquair's puns ("travel moves me"). Purists may shudder at the stilted conversations; Edwards's many epigrams are rarely the match of Wilde's, though the book does have its moments of humor, especially when Traquair's starchiness is gently mocked by the more down-to-earth blacks he encounters. Yet while Edwards makes an intriguing attempt to imagine the trip from Traquair's perspective, the effort is uneven and often tedious, slowed by awkward prose with a false, old-timey stiffness ("I was, indeed, mildly annoyed with his remark. But I hope I did not impart that displeasure in any discernible way.... I was, after all, a mere uninvited guest into his small chamber of solitude"). There is a surprising and touching conclusion, but some readers will have lost patience before then. (Feb.)
