By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult (2024 fiction)

Having been a Literature major in college and familiar with Shakespeare and his cohorts, I was surprised (and pleased) to learn that one of the Bard’s alleged collaborators was a woman named Emilia Bassano. This is her story, as well as that of Melina Greene, a fictional present-day relation. As a struggling playwright, Melina is convinced that the theater community is prejudiced against women, but 10 years out of college, she discovers Emilia and writes a play about her. Melina’s roommate Andre submits the play to a festival without her knowledge and under a male pseudonym. The play is accepted with accolades, creating a situation neither of them had foreseen. In another era, Emilia lives an unexpected life, first sold by her family as a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain and later forcibly married to the husband nobody wanted (especially Emilia). She becomes acquainted with the theater community through the Lord Chamberlain and begins to write poetry. She also falls in love with the young Earl of Southampton and begins an affair that shapes the rest of her life. Eventually, she writes plays, which she sells to William Shakespeare in order to keep her married home solvent. This is a book that is steeped in the language of Shakespeare’s plays; lines of dialogue appear both as quotes and as words spoken by the characters. The author challenges the reader to pick them out and provides an index at the end. While it seems that someone who studied Elizabethan literature might get more out of the book, this isn’t necessarily so, as Melina’s story is completely contemporary and draws parallels between present and past. The more I read, the more I enjoyed this book, and I shed a few tears at the end.

Reviewed by Ginger Russell