A New Year, a "New Life"

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have given rave reviews to Tom Crewe's just published novel, The New Life. Set in Britain in the late 1890s, it's based on the story of real-life figures John Addington and Henry Ellis, who meet (as the title implies) through the New Life Society and "decide to collaborate on a book, grounded in Greek philosophy and arguing against homosexuality's status as a crime." The Post review is headlined "The spirit of E.M. Forster hangs over [it]," and the reviewer cites several of Crewe's nods to the latter's fiction to make that case. Since we're going to be discussing Forster's  Aspects of the Novel on Jan. 18, that connection further whets my curiosity about this new novel. Perhaps yours, as well?