By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

By Any Other Name is the new novel by Jodi Picoult, which was published in the UK on October 10 – three days after I saw her talking about it at Cheltenham Literature Festival. When my kids were younger, I read a lot of Jodi Picoult books, but at some point she stopped being an essential read for me and I stopped reading. But I went along to Cheltenham Literature Festival to hear her speak for old time’s sake.

Within seconds of her starting to talk, I knew I had to read By Any Other Name. I don’t generally buy full price hardbacks, but I had a £10 book token left over from my birthday and £10 of points saved up on my Waterstones card, so it cost me just £2 in actual cash!

By Any Other Name is the story of two women, centuries apart. Melina is a wannabe playwright in the present day. Scarred by criticism of her writing at university, she keeps writing, but keeps it a secret. Her flatmate, Andre, is convinced the play she’s written will be a success and submits it to a competition under the name ‘Mel’, making her gender more ambiguous. (Although I think in the UK, Mel would be female 99% of the time.) The play she has written is about Melina’s ancestor, Emilia Bassano.

Emilia Bassano really existed. She was the first woman in England to become a published poet, back in the 1600s. Born into a family who performed for Queen Elizabeth I, she was put in the care of a wealthy countess on her mother’s death. When the countess goes away, Emilia becomes a courtesan at the age of just 13 – to a 56 year old year man. He was the Lord Chancellor and responsible for commissioning plays in England. Emilia was well educated and would have seen many of those plays.

When she was 23, she became pregnant and her life changed. Suddenly, she was having to scrape a living.

In By Any Other Name, Emilia wrote plays, which was banned for a woman. She sold them to a man so they could be published under his name and performed.

That man’s name was William Shakespeare.

I’ve heard theories that Shakespeare couldn’t really have written all of the plays attributed to him, but I’ve never given those theories much thought. By Another Name really made me think about whether he could have actually written those plays. And I think maybe Emilia Bassano really did write at least some of them!

By Any Other Name is a really special book and I absolutely loved it. It’s not the easiest read, but if you can cope with books which are a bit heavier, I can’t recommend it highly enough.