By Any Other Name: A Novel, Jodi Picoult, author; Billie Fulford-Brown, Laura Benanti, Jayne Entwistle, Andrew Fallaize, Joe Jameson, John Lee, Nicholas Guy Smith, Simon Vance, Steve West, and the author, Jodi Picoult, narrators.
Melina Green and Andre Washington are roommates. He is black and gay. She is white and Jewish. They are both writers, so they have that in common. He believes he is at a disadvantage because of his color, and she believes she is at a disadvantage because of her gender. Neither have been successful yet and neither have recently submitted manuscripts.
At one time, the literary critic, Jasper Tolle, had pretty much trashed Melina’s manuscript and her talent. She was demoralized. When her future manuscripts were so often rejected, she stopped submitting them for publication. Andre had no confidence and did not submit his either.
The story actually begins when Andre learns of a contest. While in a drunken stupor, he decides to submit Melina’s manuscript, not his own. He submits it under the name of Mel Green. She knows nothing about this, and he believes that using the name Mel instead of Melina, means that her sexual identification will play no part in how it is treated. When she unexpectedly wins the contest, Melina is aghast and forces him, in the name of friendship, to pretend that he is her. He becomes Mel Green and she becomes Andrea Washington, his assistant. The winners’ plays will be produced, but the same theater critic, Jasper Tolle, that once trashed Melina’s effort, will be in charge. She hides her identity from him.
The play is called “By Any Other Name”. It is all about her ancestor, who happens to be Emilia Lanyer, nee Bassano (a hidden Jew), a courtesan, and the supposed real author of many of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. As a woman in the 1500’s, Emilia had no rights at all. In order to be published, she too, used a false identity. Emilia was so talented, that Shakespeare, not so talented, paid her to write the plays, and he submitted and produced them under his own name. She was happy just to have her plays performed. Both main characters, Melina and Emilia, live in a world that is portrayed with very limited rights for women, although Emilia’s seems far more limited. Perhaps the point is that the more things have changed, the more they have remained the same.
Although both women secretly posed as males to achieve success, which woman truly achieved the success? Although both suffered from limited rights, if we compare their lives, did both have legitimate concerns? Melina, in the modern world, believes that women and other marginalized groups live in a society designed to offer them less opportunity. Emilia lives in the past world in which women were merely chattel, owned by the man they lived with or married.
Emilia’s world, 400 years ago, is illuminated well, but it became tedious as it got repetitious and seemed to focus on her romantic involvements. So, Emilia Bassano may or may not have been the real Shakespeare, but apparently, she was the real paramour of Lord Hunsdon, but really only in love with Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton. She was also great friends with Christopher Marlowe, the esteemed playwright. Emilia is depicted as very courageous, though not virtuous.
Melina Green, is in the world of the present. Her play, highlighting her ancestor who happens to be Emilia Bassano, is the play Andre submitted. Her character does not feel as fully developed as Emilia’s. The main point about Melina is that as a woman she feels abused by the system, and because of that, she is keeping too many secrets. She often dissolves into tears. I am not sure she is painted with too much virtue either, since her success is coupled with lies. Romance and passion soon overtake her, as well.
In fact, was Emilia a real person? Was she really Shakespeare? Was Shakespeare really untalented? Was Christopher Marlowe really her friend?
This is an elaborate production of a novel that spans four centuries and features two women fighting a system that abuses them. There are multiple narrators who perform well, and it is obvious that an enormous amount of research went into the writing of this book. The message it imparts is that women and other marginalized groups, blacks, Latinx, LGBTQ+, etc., do not have equal rights or equal opportunity, that white men are in charge and do not realize how unfair their position is, with regard to the rest of the population, and possibly, though I hope not, that Jewish husbands are physically abusive to their wives because they can be and have that right. Alphonso Lanyer brutally beat Emilia. Her recovery often demanded the suspension of disbelief. It was a hard book to finish.