Jodi Picoult creates compelling stories out of topical social issues. Through the story of Emilia Bassano in Elizabethan England and Melina Green in modern-day New York, she tackles the silencing of women’s voices throughout history to show how far we have – or haven’t – come.
Melina is a talented young playwright whose confidence is shattered when she is publicly humiliated by famous theatre critic Jasper Tolle. Ten years later, she writes in secret and completes a play based on her ancestor Emilia Bassano. When her best friend, Andre, submits the play to a competition, Melina may have the chance to prove herself – and get revenge on Jasper. Or will her success come at the price of another?
In 1582, 13-year-old orphan Emilia Bassano is given as a courtesan to the Lord Chamberlain. Under his patronage, she blossoms – although she quickly realises that a woman has little power or control over her future. She is a born writer and, through her friendship with Christopher Marlowe, starts to write plays. In a world where women have no voice, can Emilia find a way to tell her story?
By Any Other Name brilliantly tells the story of two passionate women who are determined to create something beautiful, even while the world conspires to silence them. The authorship, or not, of Shakespeare is a hotly debated topic but Picoult lays out a convincing case for why Emilia could have written these plays – and why, in a world where history is written by those in power, the ‘absence of evidence doesn’t mean there is evidence of absence’.
Reviewed by Melinda Woledge
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jodi Picoult is the recipient of many awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Awards from the YALSA, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is a patron of the Carole Shields Prize for Fiction which is awarded to female fiction writers.
Jodi Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.
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