JODI PICOULT By Any Other Name. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
Jodi Picoult’s latest novel reimagines Shakespeare and shows little has changed since the sixteenth century for women playwrights.
‘I believe we can help each other,’ Emilia said. ‘You wish for everyone to know your name; I wish for no one to know mine.’
So begins By Any Other Name, the latest offering from Jodi Picoult, an author whose raison d’etre is to dive head-first into the controversies from which many of us would run a thousand miles . To Picoult, it is the very issues that divide, confuse, and aggrieve us, the stories that rip at the fabric of otherwise harmonious societies and relationships, that are the only ones worth telling. In her time she has tackled abortion rights, illness-induced hallucinations, children conceived as organ donors for their terminally ill siblings, and the meaning of justice for escaped Nazis long after the Nuremberg trials have ended.
Now she has moved on to the works of Shakespeare.
It is clear from the title of By Any Other Name (recalling the famous lines in Romeo and Juliet: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet) that the narrative will somehow include the world of Shakespearean England. But the story opens instead with two young creatives living in contemporary New York City and struggling to break into the theatre scene: would-be playwrights Melina Green and her flatmate and longtime confidante, Andre. Melina excelled with her writing in college but now feels she has hit the glass ceiling before she even had a chance to enter the room. Andre, also talented, but a member of two minority groups – African American and gay – has refused since graduating to even try. Instead he satisfies his artistic urges by working as a lackey in a talent agency.
Then comes the breakthrough. Melina discovers she is a distant descendant of Emilia Bassano, mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the man charged with approving the plays to be performed at court for Queen Elizabeth I. Born in 1569, Emilia was the first woman to openly become a published poet in England and remains a possible candidate for the ‘dark lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets. At first dismissive of this information, all of that changes when Melina chooses to make Emilia the subject of her new play, and the vehicle through which to express her frustrations at the gender-based barriers she faces.
Emilia, born of humble origins but selected by Hunsdon to be his mistress, is initially horrified at her fate. But soon she discovers there is a certain power in inhabiting the edges of acceptability – shadows that can be hidden within, assumptions that can be leveraged. Slowly, she moves from dignified disgust to becoming the puppet master behind the scenes, playing a symphony on the strings of the lesser, but much more visible, male players.
Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, Melina finds herself doing much the same. What begins as a prank by Andre – who submits one of her plays under his name – opens the door to a whole new world, a world into which Mel Green, male playwright, bursts as a fresh and exciting new voice in the New York theatre scene. Just as Emilia hides behind Shakespeare in Elizabethan times, Melina finds herself becoming the assistant to the man credited with writing her words.
The question at the heart of By Any Other Name is rather unsubtle. Despite the passing of 450-odd years since Emilia faced her visibility dilemma, Melina Green is still having to grapple with her own. Though the modern passages don’t flow with the same smoothness as the historical scenes, and the difficulties of Mel and Andre almost feel forced at times – many of the circumstances are not exactly comparable, with Emilia forced to prostitute herself to keep food in her stomach and a roof over her head, and Melina and Andre somehow managing to afford an apartment in New York, no matter how modest – Picoult is more than capable of exploring these questions to a more sophisticated level than a simple cry of ‘discrimination!’ For example, is there a hierarchy of disadvantage? Does being a woman trump being Black or gay? Can cis white men, no matter how well intentioned, actually make a meaningful contribution to addressing experiences so different from their own? And how much have we, as a society, progressed in these matters since the days of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe?
Perhaps not that much, when a prominent US politician feels comfortable making disparaging comments about childless cat ladies. Though he did later clarify he had nothing against cats, rather reinforcing Melina’s point. Bloomberg tells us that it was only in 2023 that executive women finally outnumbered CEOs named John, and Picoult herself is an extremely successful female writer, though of novels, not plays. Perhaps there is light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel after all.
Jodi Picoult By Any Other Name Allen & Unwin 2024 PB 544pp $34.99
Sally Nimon once graduated from university with an Honours degree majoring in English literature and has hung around higher education ever since. She is also an avid reader and keen devourer of stories, whatever the genre.
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