By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult
Published by Ballantine Books
Publication date: August 20, 2024
Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Historical
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If you’re a reader of Jodi Picoult’s novels then you know to expect meticulous, thorough research on whatever subject she’s writing about. She is also a pro at exploring both sides of complicated issues in an evenhanded way. Now, only one of these two statements is true in her latest book, By Any Other Name, a dual timeline story set in the 1500s London and contemporary NYC. Picoult pulls no punches in a novel that some will consider sacrilege. For me, it was an eye-opening, almost mind-bending experience that shredded decades of learning and belief.
Melina Green is a playwright, but despite success with her school-produced plays she finds herself unable to make any headway in the writing groups that feed the theater world in NYC. It isn’t until she learns that Emilia Bassano, a 16th century British courtesan, is an ancestor and starts digging into her life that the idea for a new play consumes her. The resulting piece is her best work, but male dominated theater groups still pass, citing the subject as one of little interest. Until her best friend Andre submits the play to a competition without her knowledge.
Picoult shifts the narrative in By Any Other Name from Melina to the young Emilia who, at the age of 13 is sold by a relative to an aristocrat in Queen Elizabeth’s court. Lord Hunsdon is responsible for vetting all of the entertainment performed both at court and in London. A much older man, his enlightened beliefs about educating a woman meant she spent her days indulging her love of reading from his extensive library and writing. Soon, she is composing her own plays and poetry—secretly, as even Hunsdon doesn’t think women should be published.
For both Melina and Emilia, the passion for writing and seeing that writing transformed on the stage, is so great they cede their work to men, just to get it out in the world, but with consequences they’d never considered. In By Any Other Name, Picoult is able, through two riveting stories, to illuminate how much and sometimes, how little, has changed for women in their need to be heard.
Given the breadth of Shakespeare’s reach in English literature there is much ground to be covered in a work purporting to prove he was not the Bard he’s been revered to be for centuries. Picoult doesn’t shy away from the task, but it means that By Any Other Name can be ponderous reading at times. The multi-layered world of British theater and society in the 1500s is carefully replicated with a wide range of both stars and lesser-known players set amidst a time of the glamour and squalor of London. This is the easy reading, while pages of sonnet verses and play passages are a bit harder to keep up with. At 544 pages something has to give and for me, it was certain storylines that felt ancillary to the novel’s plot.
At a time when women’s voices are being silenced more than ever, By Any Other Name is going to stoke pushback against historical narratives that have been spoon fed to us. As I mentioned, Picoult did copious work researching this novel (her Author’s Note is critical reading). Two of the simplest findings? There is a breadth of documentation about Shakespeare the actor, the theater owner, and the businessman, but there was nothing found (to this day) of his writing. Even for the times this seems impossible—no diary, no drafts, no works in progress or discarded works. Nor a single collaboration with any other writer, a highly unusual circumstance for the times. These are just two pieces of the many in the sprawling puzzle Picoult reassembles about a man who may, or may not, have written some of the greatest works in the English language. Absolutely fascinating and for me, a subject I want to learn more about.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Ballantine Books in exchange for an honest review.*
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