Will I love By Any Other Name?

Even though it’s a work of fiction, what I found fascinating about this novel was the glimpse into the world of playwrighting and how, for centuries, the playing (or playwrighting) field has not been a level one.

In Elizabethan times, Emilia Bassano writes Shakespeare’s plays and gets kept as a mistress. In modern-day New York City, Melina Green’s work gets read only because it’s been submitted under a man’s name. Not much has changed.

I studied Shakespeare in community college, for my bachelor's degree in English, and for my master's degree in English. Jodi Picoult managed to make reading about his work entertaining as she offered an alternative explanation for the quality of the writing despite his lack of education. I enjoyed the dual timelines that served as a reflection of the prejudices and issues the woman in each era faced. This is a keeper, and one I'll re-read!

As an English major in college, I knew about theories that Shakespeare didn't write his plays, but this is the first time that I have read a novel that imagined the story of that 'ghost' writer. A Jewish young woman whose family came from Italy, Emilia Bassano was a talented musician, writer and thinker. Her story is woven together with a modern young woman, also a playwright and a descendant of Emilia's. With unflinching realism, the author Jodi Picoult paints a vivid portrait of the two women and their heroic efforts to express themselves creatively in a man's world. Picoult… show more.

This was a beautifully written and fascinating tale about the possibility that Shakespeare was not the author of his sonnets and plays, but instead was a woman named Emilia Bassano, one of a few writers who wrote the tales that Shakespeare paid for and used as his own. I loved all the Shakespeare references.
An incredible story from start to finish, full of passion, heartache, love, desire, frustration and tragedy.