Jodi Picoult’s bestselling novels often focus on family, relationships and how our choices affect our lives. Her latest novel, By Any Other Name, does all of the above, but it also offers something new. Through her protagonist, the real-life historical poet Emilia Bassano, Picoult convincingly explores the possibility that Bassano was the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.
Unlike Shakespeare, Bassano was formally educated and well-travelled before she was forced to become the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, who happened to be the main theatre censor of the day. Through his connections, she meets a mercenary actor called William Shakespeare whom she pays to act as her pseudonym.
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A secondary, modern-day story runs alongside the historical one, that of a Manhattan-based aspiring playwright called Melina Green. Melina can’t get her play about her ancestor, Emilia Bassano, staged because it’s too “emotional”, or, some might say, too female. When her friend submits the play to a competition under a male pseudonym, the deceit is the perfect set-up for tension, misunderstanding and betrayal.
Picoult smoothly transitions between the contemporary and historical storyline using the neat device of a page from Melina’s play as the bridge between past and present. She draws satisfying parallels between the two stories, from Emilia’s gay best friend, Christopher Marlowe, and Melina’s GBF André, to the plague and Covid, and the fact that women and minorities are still routinely overlooked today in favour of men.
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This last point is not new terrain for Picoult, who ruffled literary feathers back in 2015 when she complained that writers such as her were ignored in favour of “white male literary darlings” such as Jonathan Franzen and this book feels like the full-throated book of evidence to back up that complaint.
The most impressive achievement of this novel, however, is how perfectly Picoult makes Bassano’s story track Shakespeare’s work, so that Emilia’s abusive husband becomes the inspiration for The Taming Of The Shrew and Othello, while the loss of her daughter inspires the famous lines of Sonnet 18.
Picoult is an undeniably brilliant storyteller and has sold over 40 million books. By Any Other Name is both clever and enjoyable, a sumptuous novel that can be read as you like it, as a sweeping dual-timeline love story, or a very enjoyable Easter-egg hunt for Shakespearean references. Either way, it’s pure pleasure to read.
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