Author Publication date 1929 | Country Australia Genre Fiction | |
Publisher Bobbs-Merrill, Indiana, USA | ||
Dearest Idol (1929) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It was published under the author's pseudonym "Walter Beckett".
Contents
Story outline
The novel is set in Europe and follows the story of a 19-year-old boy named Tony Dawson (called "Boysie" by his by Aunt Matilda). Tony and Matilda have moved to London, and Tony has left school and gone to work in a well-known bank. While working there he meets Boris and the novel explores the friendship that develops between them.
Critical reception
In her PhD thesis titled "Deconstructing Martin Boyd : Homosocial Desire and the Transgressive Aesthetic", Jenny Blain notes in her introduction that "the novel's predominant focus [is] on narcissism, egoism and homosexual possibility. Tony is a monster of vanity and self-love; he also has an infantile fixation on adulation and power."