what do you think tsh characters would be doing today? like as middle aged adults

Richard is either teaching (trying to be Julian after everything that happened; trying to be Henry?) classics somewhere tiny in California - disinterested kids and a computer he can work perfectly but wishes he couldn’t, or he’s doing something like trying to be an poet. I don’t think he’d vote these days and he’s probably 1. unhappily married and closeted and self-loathing or 2. unmarried and closeted and self-loathing. He still drinks too much and he still sees Henry’s face staring back at him behind him in the mirror; he goes away for weeks to the woods and has a little cabin and lights a fire and thinks about the pyre they burned Patroclus on. 

 Francis is divorced. It was a fairly cheerless marriage built on lies and far too much money, but his grandfather has died now, so he can live as he likes. He lives in his aunt’s house with Camilla. He writes lots of letters to people all over the world and he reads Richard’s poetry. I can’t imagine him really having a job but I like to think he does a lot for mental health and addiction charities; they’ve turned one wing of the house into a sort of rehab and place of refuge. His mother lives there and Charles has passed through a few times, and so has Cloke Rayburn. He has three cats and he reads a lot. He sends postcards from every city and he has a boyfriend (they won’t get married) who he met in a diner in Boston. He spends far too much time on webmd. He is as happy as he could ever be. 

 Camilla lives with Francis and she went back to college (not Hampden) to study literature; it shifted to Old English and now she translates and lectures in old english. Her translation of Beowulf became very popular and they might be making a tv series of it. She lives half the year in London and half the year in the USA; Francis calls her Persephone sometimes. She’s not married but she has been seeing her London editor for years and years; her hair is still short and she wears white a lot still. She goes to mass sometimes and she always lights candles for the greek class. Her room is full of maps of the world from before Westerners had found half of it and she wishes almost that they had never found America, that she had been born a shieldmaiden and died with a sword in her hand and blood on her teeth. She thinks about the old gods a lot. 

Charles defied all expectations and stayed with the lady he met in rehab years ago, and is now probably in a polyamorous relationship with her and a man who he met at Camilla’s book signing. They’re very happy. He has stopped drinking but he still smokes weed occasionally. He probably has a farm shop and a lot of local people look up to him as that weird guy who smokes a lot of weed and worships pagan gods, even if that’s not quite true. He and Camilla phone each other every week but there’s not so much to say now; they’re tired of old memories and old wounds. 

what is the secret history about?

it’s a cautionary tale about devoting yourself too much to The Aesthetic TM