Genre - Contemporary and Historical Fiction

Sometimes I feel as if the more the world changes the more it stays the same. Such seems to be the case in the world of theater as illustrated by Jodi Picoult’s upcoming novel By Any Other Name. Picoult explores through fiction set in the present and in the time of Shakespeare that William Shakespeare was not, in fact, the writer of the plays and poems credited to him. In the modern setting Melina Green feels she has been burned as a woman aspiring to write for the theater. An early experience of being dismissed by a harsh male critic has left her shy of trying again. When she researches and discovers that her ancestor Emilia Bassano may have written some of the plays of Shakespeare, she tries her hand again at a new play. In the Elizabethan times we follow the life of Emilia Bassano - courtesan, playwright, wife, and mother, learning of the struggle of women to work independently in this time. Her life is for this “modern” woman often horrifying.

I love Jodi Picoult’s character development - her people never disappoint. Melina is certainly not perfect, but that is the beauty of Picoult’s writing. She consistently challenges us with complexity and a refusal to provide an easy answer. So here’s the thing. I understood her frustration and her response to her evaluation by theater critic Jasper Tolle; I can even relate to how she allows that one incident to shape her writing career moving forward. Her decisions seem perfectly logical and are in many respects. The evidence that women are not treated fairly in the theater world seems clear. I was able to feel her angst. But the implications of allowing the world to believe that Andre, her best friend, is the playwright added a layer for which I was not prepared. In many ways I learned right alongside Melina about the gravity of what she asked of a member of another marginalized group. Tolle himself who should be easy to hate - struggles with social cues and has to learn his own lessons and face his own negative role in Melina’s and other stories. The use of Melina’s play structurally to transition us into the Elizabethan age and Emilia’s life works beautifully and creates the comparison and perhaps the illustration that not enough has changed in the intervening years. But my visceral hatred of how Emilia is treated is proof enough that change has happened. How she is bartered to and by men, how she becomes a courtesan, her inability to escape abuse, her inability to utilize her talents - so painful to read. Along with excellence in character development, Picoult expertly crafts these two timelines - so differently, yet painfully similar. Her research is impeccable - says the old lady retired librarian.

And says the old lady retired literature teacher, you don’t have to love Shakespeare’s (?) work to love this book, but the layers my years of teaching and reading Shakespeare added in terms of plotting and dialogue was for me a delight. I enjoyed reading the very words I have admired for so long in this novel as part of Emilia’s life. So I am left with two primary impacts. The first is, I’d like to teach Shakespeare just one more time with a more thorough look at the scholarship challenging him as the author. I just know - I can picture the students - that the discussion of the works would be so much more enriched and lively. Up until now, I didn’t take the scholarship surrounding anti-Stratfordians so very seriously, and I now feel compelled to give it all another look. While we may never know for sure - wow, credit should be given where credit is due and removed where it is not. I know Picoult had access to sources that I could likely never touch, and she used them well. The second is - my word - we should be very careful to safeguard our rights as women. I think I have been in danger of taking them for granted - because I wasn’t a part of the fight for them. I think that attitude is even more prevalent in women who are 10-30 years younger than I am. I won’t do politics here, but recent developments have dampened my assurance. A cursory google search will remind us that women have only been voting in the United States since 1920 - in spite of Abigail Adams’ impassioned pleas in the 1700s. Only since 1974, (I was 8!) have women been allowed to get a credit card or a mortgage in their own names without a man cosigning. My mom couldn’t get a credit card. My. Mom. In By Any Other Name, Jodi Picoult does what she does very well. She writes a novel to make her readers think - about a variety of issues - in this case about the rights of women and the marginalized. Progress does not equal a finished job; nor does any right seem to be guaranteed. She does give us hope but without providing easy answers. She provides a call to action even. I am a long time fan of Jodi Picoult’s books and her August 20 release is stunning. I will be recommending By Any Other Name far and wide. Thank you to NetGalley and Ballentine Books for allowing me to review an advance reader copy.