By Any Other Name

June 3, 2024
Picoult (Wish You Were Here) offers a stimulating if muddled parallel narrative of two women writers, each of whose work is credited to a man. In 1582, poet Emilia Bassano becomes consort to Lord Hunsdon, Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Chamberlain. At the time, women were forbidden to have anything to do with the theater, but when Emilia crosses paths with William Shakespeare, he’s impressed with her work and agrees to pay for the sonnets and plays she’s secretly written if he can take credit for them. Thus begins a working relationship that spans decades. In the present day, Emilia’s descendant Melina Green writes a play about Emilia and Shakespeare, but fears she won’t be able to get it produced after being told that people only relate to plays by men. Unbeknownst to Melina, her roommate, Andre, submits the play to a fringe festival under the pseudonym Mel Green, leading the artistic director to assume the writer is a man. After the play is accepted, Andre poses as Mel during the production, with Melina pretending to be his assistant. The Elizabethan sections, which follow Emilia through an unhappy marriage as the work she wrote for Shakespeare receives acclaim, are the strongest. In comparison, Picoult’s depictions of racism and sexism in the contemporary theater world are a bit simplistic. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Laura Gross, Laura Gross Literary.

Starred review from June 1, 2024
Perennial best-seller Picoult, who has tackled such heady subjects as same-sex marriage, abortion, and racism, takes on another hot-button topic sure to ignite controversy and conversation: the question of Shakespearean authorship. In this dual time line tale, struggling playwright Melina Green has written a play about her ancestor Emilia Bassano, who she believes really penned many of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Frustrated with sexism in the New York theater scene in 2023, Melina pushes her Black male friend Andre, also a playwright, to claim credit for her work when a lauded but arrogant critic expresses interest in getting the play produced. This leads to a Shakespearean--or should it be Bassanian?--comedy of errors. At the same time, Picoult tells Emilia's story. Forced to become a courtesan at 13, she eventually falls in love with a handsome nobleman, but when she gets pregnant, she's married off to a brutal man and forced to earn a living penning poems and plays for a dissolute actor, namely, William Shakespeare. Some readers will undoubtedly quibble with Picoult's conclusions about the Bard, but they'll just as assuredly find themselves thoroughly engaged with the struggles of Emilia, Melina, and Andre as writers with the deck stacked against them in this timely and affecting tale.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Picoult's many, many fans will pounce on her latest incisive, pot-stirring tale, while the Shakepearean theme will attract even more readers.

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June 1, 2024

Best-selling Picoult (Wish You Were Here) intertwines two narratives across centuries. In the 16th century, Emilia Bassano pays William Shakespeare for the use of his name to bring her plays to the stage. In the present, playwright Melina Green, Emilia's descendant, wrestles with giving up credit for her play to see it performed. Prepub Alert.

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July 15, 2024
Who was Shakespeare? Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There's another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford--Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult's spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled--unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern--and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. "Every gap in Shakespeare's life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills," Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia's story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina's frustrated efforts to get a play produced--a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina's play, By Any Other Name, "wasn't meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure." Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina's story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina's lover is an awkwardNew York Times theater critic. It's Emilia's story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life. A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.

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