In order to emulate her Transfixions, she has constantly reinvented her identity over the years in a series of ‘Escapes’, transforming into an ever-more dramatic version of herself. Like Mathilda, most of these figures are queer and many are Black. She experiences what she calls ‘Transfixions’–intense emotional and sensory connections to historical figures that can be strong enough to leave her in a giddy daze. The narrator of LOTE, Mathilda Adamarola, is also fascinated by Tennant and his friends. He was–in the words of writer Lady Caroline Blackwood – “just an eccentric gay who didn’t really do anything”. After tearing through a number of biographies, my favourite figure became Stephen Tennant. His pictures capture the dazzling, decadent world of these young British socialites of the interwar period–their fabulous costume parties, heavy drinking, artistic flair, and taste for excess. WINNER of The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2021.I first discovered the Bright Young Things at an exhibition of Cecile Beaton’s photography. WINNER of the James Tait Black Prize 2021.

The artists’ residency throws her deeper into a lattice of secrets and secret societies that takes hold of her aesthetic imagination, but will she be able to break the thrall of her Transfixions? From champagne theft and Black Modernisms, to art sabotage, alchemy and lotus-eating proto-luxury communist cults, Mathilda’s journey through modes of aesthetic expression guides her to truth and the convoluted ways it is made and obscured.

Her search brings her to a peculiar artists’ residency in Dun, a small European town Hermia was known to have lived in during the 30s. After discovering a photograph of the forgotten Black modernist poet Hermia Druitt, who ran in the same circles as the Bright Young Things that she adores, Mathilda becomes transfixed and resolves to learn as much as she can about the mysterious figure. Solitary Mathilda has long been enamored with the ‘Bright Young Things’ of the 20s, and throughout her life, her attempts at reinvention have mirrored their extravagance and artfulness. Lush and frothy, incisive and witty, Shola von Reinhold’s decadent queer literary debut immerses readers in the pursuit of aesthetics and beauty, while interrogating the removal and obscurement of Black figures from history.

LOTE by Shola von Reinhold