Centered on the idea of identity construction, the Forger's Tale is the story of John-Stuart Young, who—as the author, Stephanie Newell, makes very clear—is part liar, rouge, litteratus, entrepreneur, and homosexual. The book does many things at once. Through the biographical study of a man in search of his identity, Newell reexamines British imperialism in Nigeria and local response to it. She shines new light on personalities, literary activities, journalism, economy, and queer culture in early colonial Nigeria. In particular, she describes the interfaces between colonized citizens and colonizers and criticizes rightly the artificial bifurcation of Africa into precolonial and colonial eras and behaviors. Set within the sociohistorical milieu of rapidly changing British and Igbo societies of 1880–1940, the book details Stuart-Young's transition from a teenager striving to break out of poverty and lower-class life in Britain to a successful trader in a British colony. The struggle involved the invention, through fraud, of a middle-class life and, ultimately, Stuart-Young's conviction and imprisonment. Despite his misdeeds, Stuart-Young benefited from a curious and long-standing phenomenon in British public life—a fascination with rogues. The very ruthlessness that drove him to the top may be explained by the extreme poverty from which he managed to escape and his search for a station in history. Stuart-Young's deprivation in the homeland was not limited to being a commoner; he lived a double life. His fascination with pederasty and literary glory drew him to Oscar Wilde, whose friendship he fantasized and whose example as a husband probably explained his own two brief heterosexual marriages. Like several “rejected” metropolitan citizens, Stuart-Young relocated to the periphery (i.e., the colonies) to achieve what he could only dream of at home—fame, power, self-discovery, and independence. After short stays in a few places, he settled in Onitsha, in eastern Nigeria, in 1905, becoming a successful trader, writer, and local celebrity. His days in Onitsha coincided with an era of rapid socioeconomic transitions. Visited intermittently by Europeans since the 1830s, Onitsha had become by the 1900s one of the fastest-growing cities in Nigeria and a center of commerce and Christian activities.

Considering the carnival-like atmosphere at his funeral, one might wonder why the unconventional, boy-loving Stuart-Young had become popular in a society in which few Europeans recognized him and still fewer achieved such fame among Africans? Far from other colonists, Stuart-Young met the Igbo at their point of need. As a palm oil trader, he was centrally located in the economic life of Onitsha. He lived in the inner city and interacted daily with traders, providing markets and “trust” for oil marketers, and with children, to whom he was generous. He reached out beyond Onitsha to support West African anticolonial agitations; he condemned the Euro-Christian view of the superiority of the colonists' culture and was a known contributor on topical issues in the vibrant journalistic world of interwar West Africa. Nonetheless, by condemning aspects of Igbo culture and wishing Africans would behave like Europeans, his views of Africa were no less rooted in imperial arrogance and white supremacy.

Newell makes another important point: if imperialism thrived on “categorizing” the colonized as the “inferior other,” the people of Onitsha grappled with Young's identity and were not short of descriptions for the “strange man” in their town. They called him “Odeziaku,” in reference to his wealth and philanthropy, and “Eke” and “Mami Wata,” for his suprahuman (spiritlike) “motherly” and boy-loving character. How do the two latter terms relate to the larger question of sexuality in Africa? Newell uses Stuart-Young's libid.nal preference for young boys to explain (homo)sexual encounters between Europeans and Africans and how the Igbo perceived (acquiesced to?) this behavior. Newell seeks to locate the toleration of homosexuality in the Igbo system of dual sex and a “culture of discretion,” contrary to the notion of European exoticism. This is perhaps a liberal interpretation of Igbo dual sex, and surely one that could attract more scrutiny. In a society frequently visited by single European men (and, later, Catholic monks), in which impotency is a fact of life, what was the Igbos' notion of a “woman hater,” or “Eke”? What role, if any, did the Catholic institution of altar boys play in local understanding of a European “boy lover”? Is the “woman hater” necessarily gay, a pedophile, or a pederast? If local people tolerated Stuart-Young's sexual orientation, was this due to a preexisting gay culture, a conflation with dual sex, submission to an indispensable Briton, or local rendition of a perverted (exotic) European whose proper humanity was in doubt? How does “boy loving” relate to the view that Stuart-Young was involved in occult practices? Africans had established links, dating back to the era of the Atlantic slave trade, between commercial success and magic. Slavers (local and foreign) were associated with witchcraft and the capacity for benevolence and wickedness. In West Africa, the “Mami Wata” spirit is represented as part-woman, part-snake (sometimes hermaphrodite), motherly, linked with the sea (foreign trade), generous to allies, and wicked to foes. The reader should also be obliged to consider whether or not parents were aware that their children were being molested and, if so, how they responded. Also, were these boys homosexuals themselves? Some clearly resented Stuart-Young's actions yet continued to patronize him, but for others this is less clear.

Newell draws on a range of sources and methods. Extensive secondary sources on imperial, African, and literary studies are supplemented by letters, newspapers, and personal interviews. The subject and analysis make the book read like history, economics, journalism, sociology, psychology, literature, and queer-culture; hence, it is a must-read for different things. Newell presents this homosexual and forger and his position in the British Empire. Very rarely are these individuals given either a voice or even a name in imperial history. Perhaps a much fuller view of colonial Nigeria and British experience in the rest of the empire shall emerge as a result.