Category: Pop

Album Reviews 24/10/24

Sara Serpa, Encounters & Collisions (Biophilia Records)

I’m sorry, I can deal with a lot of things — improv jazz, noise-jazz, lots of things — but this just isn’t my cup of tea. That may be because I gravitate to a rather conventional Earl Grey, and sure, I appreciate that a lot of critics would tell me that this Portuguese singer is an acquired taste that’s beyond my ken, but I’m not a fan of self-indulgent sounds of any sort. This LP starts out with a spoken-word soliloquy about how her name is pronounced “SAH-rah,” not “SAIR-ah,” and some other gobbledygook I didn’t bother with, and then it’s on to an exercise in off-Broadway performance art, riding bumpily along on a purposely rickety float comprising cello, sax and piano. I’ll admit that a lot of (never-released) tension does emanate from Serpa’s constant edging toward dissonance, stuff that most normies would diagnose as being off-key. But I don’t need it, really. Your mileage may vary, of course, and if you want intimacy in your acoustic, academic-sounding chamber-jazz, this’d be it. C

Various Artists, Pulp Fiction: 30th Anniversary Soundtrack (Interscope Records)

I don’t know how anyone reading this could say they’ve never seen this 1994 movie, but then again, I’ve never watched The Shawshank Redemption or Deliverance all the way through, so there’ll be no charge for your hall pass. The soundtrack gave (more or less) rise to a surf-rock resurgence in pop culture; the film’s opening tune, Dick Dale’s “Miserlou,” starts things off here, leading into some dialog between John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson (yes, the bit about how the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder is called a “Royale with cheese” in France). Next is Kool & The Gang’s stomp-funky “Jungle Boogie,” which was a pleasant surprise for me to hear on the original soundtrack; I’d listened to it quite a bit in the 1980s while writing an album and doggedly attempting to expand my spectrum of musical influence (back then, I honestly believed no one else had ever even heard the dumb thing before). Director Quentin Tarantino (nowadays #MeToo-canceled, last I checked) had a pretty bizarre range of influences himself; I never understood the appeal of Urge Overkill’s “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” but it’s here too. The draw here is that it’s being released on day-glo vinyl, which is as Tarantino-schlocky as things could possibly get I suppose. A

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Right on time, Oct. 25 will see a Friday-load of new albums, from bands, overrated synth-pop artists, and nepo babies who sing off-key! Twerking like demented circus clowns, they’ll bang their Who-boombas and clang their ba-zingas and annoy me with all the noise, noise, noise, noise! What am I to do, fam, demand hazard pay? Ask all those bad bands to take music lessons? No, there is nothing I can do but report on these new albums, so that you’ll know what to do with whatever money you have left after rent, your Roku subscription and your weekly supply of ramen noodle packets and cans of beans! But wait a second, before I whip out my Gatling gun of snark and really go to town, here’s some good news, a new album from Amyl and the Sniffers, titled Cartoon Darkness! You know, I’d thought I was the only kid on my block to admire this Australian pub-punk band, but the other week someone posted about them on my Twitter and my hope for humanity was instantly lifted juuust a little bit. Don’t know about you, but I fell in love with these criminals when I saw the video of “Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled),” like, the singer makes Courtney Love look like Martha Stewart, and all I wanted out of life was to go on a Dave & Buster’s date with that girl and see how long it would take to get arrested. You people really need to go check them out, but in the meantime I’m going to see if they’re still completely feral, by checking out the video for “Chewing Gum,“ from this slappin’ new album! OK forget it, it’s awesome, she’s trying to be the next Lydia Lunch and succeeding, she’s got lipstick all over her insane rictus grin, and she’s holding a cigarette whose ash is like 2 inches long, go see this video, kids, I beg of you, you need to.

• Awesome and groovy, I’m already ahead of the holiday album curve, because your generation’s Elton John, Ben Folds, is releasing an album of Christmas songs, cleverly titled Sleigher, see what he did there! I am pleasantly amazed that the Christmas albums are already coming out, because it seemed like there weren’t any at all for me to write about here the last few years, let’s go see what this wacky piano person is doing to “Jingle Bells” or whatever. Yup, it’s good, this version of “The Christmas Song,” but let’s be real, even Gilbert Gottfried could have made that song appealing. He’ll be appearing at the Cabot Theatre in Beverly, Mass., on Nov. 10, but I’m sure the last 18 remaining tickets will have been sold by the time you read this, sorry for your loss.

• A lot of you old people remember the 1980s, when Tears for Fears was doing so many drugs that they were going around saying they were bigger than The Beatles, ha ha, remember those days? Well, they have a new live album coming out on Friday, titled Songs for a Nervous Planet! Now, don’t worry, fellow old people, Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal are still leading the band, and they still (mostly) sound like Tears For Fears as of their last album, The Tipping Point, so let’s cut to now, when they sound like a sleepy wedding band on the live version of “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” that’s on board this one. But who cares, guys, it’s Tears For Fears, amirite? I miss big poofy hair, don’t you?

• Last but not least on our plate is the new album from 1980s Boston-indie-rock legends Pixies, The Night The Zombies Came! “Motoroller” is a decent mid-tempo goth-rocker, with Frank Black doing a passable Marilyn Manson impersonation, sort of, if that’s even what he was even intending to do, who knows.

Entitlement, by Rumaan Alam

Entitlement, by Rumaan Alam (Riverhead, 288 pages)

One of the more peculiar aspects of our society is that some of us have so much money that it’s actually a challenge to get rid of it, and some of us have so little that we work multiple jobs just to keep the lights on. In a just world, the former problem would cancel out the latter, but it’s not.

Rumaan Alam tackles this paradox in Entitlement, his fourth novel, which explores the prickly issues of both money and race. It is a compelling storyline: A young Black woman is hired to work for an aging white billionaire who has established a foundation to distribute his money to worthy causes.

The fictional Asher and Carol Jaffee Foundation has shades of the real-life “Giving Pledge” that many billionaires have signed. Asher Jaffee made his money with a company that delivered office supplies (“Jaffee … in a Jiffy!” was its brilliant motto). Now 83, he still has the kind of energy in which he bounds, rather than walks, and has no interest in retiring. In fact, he is more comfortable in an office than at home. “The office was the place where things happened, the place where he was necessary, the site of his every victory.”

At the foundation, Asher has a small and fiercely devoted staff that tends to his four-day work week, which is filled with people wanting to talk to him about his money.

Brooke Orr, 33, enters this world after nine years of unsatisfying work as a teacher. She is the adopted daughter of a single mom, an attorney who works in the vaguely defined field of reproductive health and who chose to raise her children with the help of three close female friends, rather than within the confines of marriage. Brooke’s own circle includes the daughter of one of her mother’s friends, Kim, and a gay man, Matthew, that they befriended while all were matriculating at Vassar College. (“As Brooke saw it, she and Kim were continuing what their mothers had started: a most modern little family.”)

When she joins the Jaffee Foundation, Brooke is doing well enough but is also in the vaguely annoying position of watching those around her seem to do even better. Her brother is engaged to be married, and though she loves him and doesn’t herself want to get married, her interactions with the couple give way to sardonic inner dialogue on “the smugness of young people who believe they have invented love.” Meanwhile, her friend Kim has recently come into an enormous inheritance, sum unknown, that has allowed her to pay cash for an apartment worth $2 million.

While Brooke loves her friend and is genuinely glad for her good fortune, the imbalance still puts a quiet strain on their relationship. After seeing the new place for the first time, “She saw Kim’s succession of Sundays in this two-bedroom apartment. She saw coffee-stained cups upside down in the dishwasher, saw flowers bought on impulse slouching on a table, saw an orange peel, dried into brittle shells, left to molder on the marble countertop. The cleaning lady would see to that. She saw comfort and solitude and joy and it looked absolutely thrilling to her. Kim was dear, Kim was good, but Kim had done nothing to deserve any of this earthly comfort. And wasn’t the universe meant to work that way, wasn’t it governed by justice?”

But Brooke is enjoying her own good fortune, in that Asher Jaffee has been impressed by their limited interactions and wants her to have more responsibility. She’s smart, and he sees this, but it’s also possible that he’s wanting to have a fatherly influence on Brooke — with her father out of the picture all of her life, and his own daughter having died in the 9/11 attacks at age 38.

Jaffee is generous with his money, his time and his advice, telling her, “Demand something from the world. Demand the best. Demand it.”

Brooke internalizes the advice and begins to change subtly as she grows into the position and assumes more responsibility. But she also uses Jaffee’s advice as justification for bad choices as she becomes more comfortable in the moneyed world and wants her share.

Alam’s previous novels include 2020’s acclaimed Leave the World Behind (which I loved and awarded a rare A+). That book also explored contemporary themes, including race. Entitlement strives, but never achieves the tension that ripples through Leave the World Behind, making it both a smart cultural critique and an old-fashioned page-turner. Nor does Entitlement convince the reader to care all that much about either Brooke or Asher and what happens to them. Brooke has a narrative arc, to be sure, but at no point in it does she want anyone to love her.

Alam’s voice is fresh and unique, and his cultural observations spot-on. While Entitlement will likely win many accolades and maybe make a short-list or two for a prestigious award, it is, like Brooke’s pre-Asher life, ultimately unsatisfying, even for a cautionary tale. B-

Album Reviews 24/10/17

Michael Des Barres, It’s Only Rock N’ Roll (Rock Ridge Music)

Most old people have heard of this dandy (that’s literally what he is; he inherited the title of Marquis from a 13th-century French ancestor) but are far more familiar with his ex-wife, Pamela, the most famous groupie in rock history. Musically he’s always been something of a non-starter; he was in Silverhead, Detective and a few other bands, and didn’t really make much of a splash before replacing Robert Palmer in Power Station just in time to front the band at the 1985 Live Aid concert. Ladies, he looks nothing like he does on this album cover nowadays, but far better for me to mock his music than that Peter Pan business. We open with “Dyna-Mite” — not the BTS tune but the MUD glam-rocker — and right off the bat I’m thinking Rocky Horror but in serious mode, you know, T. Rex all the way baby. This is supposed to be music from Des Barres’ salad days, but Slade’s “Cum On Feel The Noise” will make 99 percent of the world think of Quiet Riot and he can’t sing it for beans. Alice Cooper’s most boring song ever, “Eighteen,” gets a properly mediocre rendition. Etc. D+

HIM, When Love and Death Embrace The Best of HIM 1997-2003 (BMG Records)

Depending on whom you ask, Finland’s biggest-ever band is (usually) cited as being either Nightwish or Lordi, but this goth-metal act does get its mentions. They’ve been broken up for good since 2017, but it’s just as well I suppose, given that their heyday is celebrated in this comp, and besides, Nightwish has long since taken over their mantle. But what a time it was for these guys, back in the early days, their first one-off American appearance coming by way of none other than skateboarder/Jackass Bam Margera, and the rest is (mostly Finnish) history. Their (very Bauhaus-meets-Marilyn Manson) version of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper” is here, as is their po-faced rub of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” and it’s about at that point that most U.S. audiences check either in or out as far as what they’re familiar with insofar as this band’s oeuvre. If you ever wanted to hear Bauhaus on steroids, it’s this, however that strikes your fancy. A

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• This Friday, Oct. 18, is three days before my birthday, so if the gods are willing, there will be decent albums for me to listen to, so that I can bring you readers glad tidings of stuff you should be listening to, marking a double celebration! Now, you and I both know that the chances of that are pretty slim, like, the last time I checked, there weren’t going to be new albums coming out this week from, say, Wire and Skinny Puppy and Acumen Nation and Pet Shop Boys alongside recently discovered recordings of Al Jolson singing all Groucho Marx-like or Benny Goodman wailing on his clarinet like Jimmy Page before there even was a Jimmy Page, so I will roll the dice, check the list, and prepare myself for the usual nauseating stew of new albums from twerkers and nepo babies. Speaking of the latter, I was in a Target store the other day when what to my bloodshot eyes should appear but a brand new glossy magazine, titled Paris (referring to Auto-Tune-dependent singing-fraud Paris Hilton, of course) subtitled something insane like Pop Icon. I couldn’t believe it, because in the old days it used to take all sorts of payola and whatnot to get an artist on the cover of a nice glossy magazine, like Hit Parader, where rock stars were interviewed in careful fawning depth by drunken journalists so the lumpen masses could discover important things like their favorite rock star’s most-hated grade school teacher, or their favorite Skittles color. But let’s face it, local bands, we’ve entered a horrifying “nepotism era” of rock ’n’ roll, folks, so, for anyone out there with rock ’n’ roll dreams, your task is clear: Unless you are Paris Hilton and can pay Megan Thee Stallion to pretend to like you, or you’re Sabrina Carpenter and can demand a record contract or else your aunt, Nancy Cartwright, will immediately stop voicing the part of Bart Simpson on The Simpsons, you have no choice but to put out 50 albums a year like King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard and all those bands do. It’s either that or just give up and finish your degree or become a plumber if you enjoy doing things like eating food and sitting in a heated dwelling without too much survival anxiety. I did not make up these new rules, guys, and the next local musician who yells at me about it on Facebook is going to get publicly ridiculed in this column, promise not threat. But meanwhile, let’s talk about TV-talk-show houseplant Jennifer Hudson and her new album, The Gift Of Love, since no one else will! Yes, it is supposedly a holiday album, but there are other hilariously over-sung covers here, like “Nature Boy” and Aretha’s “Respect.” Hm, that’s odd, no Bad Brains songs.

• Joe Jonas was the Jonas who was with the girl from Game of Thrones, and they divorced, so apparently his lawyers advised him to make a new album, which is on the way as we speak, titled Music For People Who Believe In Love! But does he, after divorcing Sansa Stark (she actually smiles a lot now)? Who knows, but the title of this album’s first song is “Work It Out,” and it starts with 12-string noodling before descending into a Justin Timberlake romp-along with high-pitched singing. Ack.

• The (it’s threatened) “final album” from noise-rockers Japandroids, Fate & Alcohol, is a bummer, because I wish they weren’t disbanding. “D&T” is a totally cool punk-speed rocker that would make Frank Black jealous. Don’t quit, fellas!

• Finally it’s Kylie Minogue, being impossibly cougar-sexy again, with her new album, Tension II! “Lights Camera Action,” the single, is a euro-trance tune that’s pretty great when she isn’t trying to sing like Ariana Grande, stop that this instant.

William, by Mason Coile

William, by Mason Coile (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 224 pages)

Earlier this year, Ray Kurzwell gave us a cheery picture of the coming world under artificial intelligence in The Singularity is Nearer. A bone-chilling alternate view is offered in Mason Coile’s novel William, a stand-out in the nascent genre of “AI horror.”

You probably won’t want to read it right before you go to bed, but it is a perfect autumn read as the story transpires on a single day: Halloween.

The titular “William” is a half-finished robot that is the project of Henry, a brilliant agoraphobic engineer who can’t leave his home without dissolving into panic — fans of the Breaking Bad universe might think of Chuck McGill in Better Call Saul, just with a different illness and profession.

Henry has built several robotic creatures, including a dog and a creepy little magician riding a small bicycle. But William is to be his ultimate creation — the robot appears to have developed consciousness — and Henry’s preoccupation with the project seems to stem not so much from personal ambition but from distracting himself from his crumbling marriage to Lily, a wealthy computer engineer.

“Things are bad between them, but not too bad,” Henry keeps reassuring himself, even though “he worries that his assessment of the bridgeable distance between himself and his wife is an error of judgment — the same made by millions of husbands right before the end.”

Things have regressed to the point where he is sleeping in the spare room of the couple’s old but cutting-edge Victorian home, a place where windows open, water heats and doors lock via voice command, in a neighborhood where drones “buzzing like honeybees” fly overhead with deliveries all day. Lily wears glasses that are connected to her computer, allowing her to access email by blinking.

It’s the sort of smart house we can envision not too far in the future. Henry created it, like he created William, who spends his time locked in the attic reading books and listening to NPR and Broadway show tunes on a transistor radio. While he can learn and converse with Henry, his body consists only of a torso, arms and head, and he is valiantly trying to make himself mobile, even to the point of attaching wheels to his chair while Henry is away.

It’s clear that Henry’s mental illness — the onset of which is not initially explained — is contributing to the couple’s marital problems, although Lily seems to be trying to help him as best she can. On this day, she has invited two former coworkers, Paige and Davis, to the house for lunch, and as they meet we see that he’s not only agoraphobic but seriously antisocial, the kind of person whose conversation always seems awkward or haughty. (One of the first things he says to Paige, while internally noting “the wasted efforts that have gone into her appearance,” is “your sleeves are too long.”)

After a bit of this uncomfortable interaction, Henry decides the best way to get through the visit is to introduce everyone to William. Even Lily hasn’t seen him, or even been allowed into the attic at this point — she only knows that her husband has been working on conscious AI.

Henry goes up first, to warn William that he is having guests, asking him to behave — the robot has a tendency to make somewhat snarky contents, to try to psychoanalyze Henry, explain his problems. “‘Don’t worry, I’ll be sweet as pie,’ the robot says, drawing a cross over its nonexistent heart’.”

Of course, he is not. And what transpires when the four go up to the lab sets in a motion a cascade of tension that leads to full-blown horror, which is not typically the kind of fare I enjoy, either in literature or in film. But I took one for this team, and was ultimately glad I did, as a series of shocking twists in the story, and the existential questions the novel raises more than made up for the unpleasant scenes.

Mason Coile is a pen name for Canadian author Andrew Pyper, who seems to be channeling Stephen King in this story. He packs a lot to ponder in this short book, which some have described as a one-sitting read. (True only if you tend to sit for long periods.)

Pyper has said that he originally wrote William as a short story, then tried to sell it as a screenplay without success, and only turned it into a novel after the first iterations failed to sell. He seems to have found the perfect length — the novel is tightly coiled, like a snake, with just the right amount of exposition, and a punch-perfect ending. It is the sort of book you have to read twice — the second time to go back and see all the foreshadowing of events that you might have missed the first time.

It’s also the sort of book you’ll want to share and talk about it, as it raises interesting questions about the nature of AI and whether artificial intelligence is something around which human beings can really install guardrails. Even God didn’t seem to do that, as Lily observes at one point — God just created without thought to the consequences, she thinks. “If beauty or discovery was the result — if chaos was the result — it didn’t matter. It only mattered that something astonishing was born.”

I don’t like horror, but I loved this absorbing, disturbing little book. A

Album Reviews 24/10/10

The Bruce Lofgren Group, Earthly And Cosmic Tales (self-released)

Apparently it’s already the start of Grammy-voting season, given that I’ve been asked to vote for this record in the first round of the Best Alternative Jazz Album category. It’s very flattering that these people think I have some sort of say in the Grammy process, but if anyone’s listening (no one is), as far as alternative jazz albums go I’d consider this one, sure. Lofgren is a southern California-based guitarist who’s been around for quite a while and built a sturdy following for his very colorful tuneage, which this certainly is. He’s not trying to frame himself as a rock bandleader at all, which is a nice break; the instruments that join him here are legion, including clarinets, fretless basses, vibes and cellos. Rather than break this down track by track I’d prefer to paint the release as something that speaks to the album cover, which has become a lost art these days: if anything, it’s a lot like Spyro Gyra in mellow mode, evincing lush, exotic landscapes rather than smoke-filled rooms. I don’t get many like this dropped on my desk; very pleasurable, deeply thought stuff. A+

Ian Gindes, Rachmaninoff Piano Works (Navona Records)

As you probably assume, classical piano music is the beluga caviar of sound. I grew up with it; my mom would bash away at her baby grand every single day (if you want to know how good she was, go listen to the YouTube of Maria João Pires performing Franz Schubert’s Impromptu D.899, Opus 90 – No. 4. That was a daily staple; mom’s version was close to that, bang-on when she was angry enough). Over the years I’ve grown to love Johann Strauss’ and Vivaldi’s symphonics, but the classical piano works of Sergei Rachmaninoff were never my bowl of Fritos really. Such desperate mawkishness, the depthless agony of the Russian proletariat, hard pass. This SoCal doctor loves him some Sergei, though, so I figured I’d let him know that someone other than the PBS arts critic and the bluebloods who’ve watched him play at Carnegie Hall are out there. Gindes’ playing is exquisite of course, and convinced me not to become an active fan of the virtuoso but to admit that his romances were indeed very pretty, non-depressing and not so angst-ridden (Op. 21: No. 5 in A-Flat Major for instance). Gentle reminder that this isn’t art that exclusively panders to snobs, you guys, it’s for everyone. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Holy vampire bats, Batman, Halloween is on the way, and there are new albums coming out on Friday, Oct. 11, to celebrate Samhain or whatever the goths like to call it when they’re trying to sound worldly! I wanted my holiday to be super special, so for the first time since Covid-19 first appeared on the scene, I contracted it this week during a trip to Concord to try to mine some antiques out of a barn. It’s the absolute worst folks, do your due diligence or you’ll be sorry, I sure am. But anyway, we’re not here to talk about drama in real life, we’re here to chat about albums, so let’s start with Supercharged, the new one from California skate-rock hooligans The Offspring, you remember them, right? No, no, not the ones who did the Malcolm in the Middle song, that was They Might Be Giants, try to keep up even though there’s really no difference at all, that’d be great. (Yes, it has come to this, my next task in this life at this writing is to go listen to a band that’s been completely irrelevant for more than 15 years as I try to fend off the urge to curl up on the couch with my lovely little XEC Covid virus gremlins and dream of being normal and non-cough-y again someday.) No, The Offspring are fine, I remember when emo was a new thing to people who hadn’t been listening to it for years already, let’s go have a listen to this new album; I think we should start with “Light It Up,” a really fast little pure-punk number that has nothing wrong with it, as opposed to the nauseatingly poppy “Make It All Right,” which makes They Might Be Giants sound like Slayer. Good lord, there’s even a Partridge Family-level “Ba ba ba ba baaaa” singalong in there. How did anyone allow this to happen?

• I’d place scary high odds that most times when they hear an Alter Bridge song most people think it’s actually Creed. That’s not a compliment, of course, but the punchline is that during one binge-drinking episode Slash, of Guns N’ Roses fame, hired Alter Bridge’s singing person Myles Kennedy to join his new band, and thus a new wrestler-metal act hit the streets, called “Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators!” I don’t know why Slash thought it would be a good idea to make his new band sound more like Creed, but that’s the state of the genre now, and besides, Kennedy has his own band, whose new album, The Art Of Letting Go, is being loaded into the delivery trucks as we speak! Let’s go see! Right, so the first song to come up in my YouTube is “Nothing More To Gain,” which, oddly enough, is more Guns N’ Roses-like than I ever would have expected, perhaps our hero has learned a lesson about the benefits of not sounding like Creed! Yes, yes, the tune starts off with an unintelligible blues-metal mess, mostly a bunch of random notes that’ll make you think of hairy men in Abraham Lincoln hats, and then Kennedy starts singing like Axl Rose! Funny how the circle of life works, isn’t it, fam?

• The Linda Lindas are an all-girl “punk-pop” band from Los Angeles, but that’s not their fault! The title track of their new album, No Obligation, is surprisingly interesting; unlike the tedious emo nonsense I was expecting, it’s like a cross between Black Flag and Hole. Recommended if you want to tick somebody off for no reason.

• And lastly it’s dream-popper Caroline Sallee, who goes by the stage name Caroline Says, with her latest oeuvre entry, The Lucky One! She covered a Spacemen 3 song once, indicating she likes them, which explains why her new single “Faded And Golden” is strummy, spacey and uneventful.

By Any Other Name, by Jodi Picoult

By Any Other Name, by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine Books, 544 pages)

Jodi Picoult does not shy away from heavy-hitting topics. In the same way that she tackles things like abortion in A Spark of Light, teen suicide in The Pact, school shootings in 19 Minutes, and Covid in Wish You Were Here, Picoult dives into the silencing of women today and throughout history in her latest, By Any Other Name.

Many of Picoult’s recent books have frustrated me with their strong political views and cultural commentary, not because I disagree with her, necessarily, but because I don’t want any author’s viewpoints shoved down my throat — put the topic out there and let me think about it. Also, I want my fiction to be a little more fictitious and a little less like I’m reading an op-ed in today’s newspaper.

By Any Other Name explores the history of repressed women in a way that mostly allows the story to do the talking. The book has two storylines: One harkens back to the 16th and 17th centuries and follows the semi-fictional life of a real woman, Emilia Bassano. Based on significant research, Picoult depicts her as a closet writer who is forced to be a lord’s courtesan for many years, then an abused wife for many more — all while writing poems and plays that an actor named William Shakespeare publishes for her under his name.

The second storyline takes place in modern day and follows Melina Green, a playwright who struggles to get her works produced, presumably because she is a woman. This is somewhat proven when one of her plays — about her ancestor, Emilia — finally gets published after its authorship is mistakenly attributed to her best friend, Andre. The irony here is that Andre is gay and Black and far from the cis white male stereotype that Picoult suggests dominates even the modern playwriting field.

Interestingly, given the subject, I felt that Melina and Emilia’s storylines could have been written by two different authors — Melina’s clearly by Picoult, where the moral of the story may as well be bolded, underlined and highlighted. (One of many examples is when Melina is talking to theater critic Jasper Tolle about why plays about “complicated, wholly realized women” don’t make it to the stage. When he says that she’s “painting with a very broad brush when it comes to what gets produced and what doesn’t,” she responds, “That is exactly the kind of thing a straight white man would say,” then waits for him to tell her she’s wrong — “which,” Picoult writes, “of course, would be proof of everything she was alleging.” Tell me, Ms. Picoult, how you really feel…).

Emilia’s story, on the other hand, seemingly could have been written by, well, any other name. Maybe this is a testament to Picoult’s ability to immerse herself in a different time period and develop a narrative based on thorough research, losing her own voice in Emilia’s in a way that she doesn’t with Melina, whose story is entirely fictional. With Emilia, it seems, all Picoult has to do is tell it like it is to get the point across (regarding Emilia’s forced relationship with Lord Chamberlain, she writes that Emilia “had been sold by her family, for her family” — no opinion there, just a fact that speaks volumes).

The difference in storytelling is somehow both fascinating and off-putting.

What I like about Emilia’s story: Emilia herself is a well-developed character whose strengths are best defined in her resilience and her intelligence; she uses both to get her writing in front of an audience, willing to forgo acknowledgment of her work in order to show her words to the world — and to make some much-needed money, as Shakespeare gave her a small portion of “his” earnings.

I also like Emilia’s secret friendship with Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, a well-known Elizabethan poet and playwright who was purportedly gay, a heavy drinker and a spy. Kit is rough around the edges but becomes a great friend to Emilia, adding an unexpected emotional arc and some comic relief. Meanwhile, Emilia’s secret relationship with Southampton is lovely and passionate and shows a spark of brightness that typically lies dormant inside her.

Emilia’s arranged relationship with Lord Chamberlain is not nearly as bad as it could be (as we see later, when she is beaten severely and often by the man she is forced to marry). She isn’t his mistress by choice, but Lord Chamberlain is a kind man, never controlling or cruel, and she benefits from both his wealth and the autonomy he grants her. She is, for those years, “a nightingale in the loveliest of cages.”

Melina’s story, by comparison, is more straightforward, specifically addressing her challenges as a female playwright. Her friendship with Andre is fun and quippy (at least at first), and her interactions with Jasper are intriguing. Her chapters are a breath of fresh, modern air, if you can get past the heavy-handed feminist commentary.

There’s a lot to like in By Any Other Name, but there’s also a lot going on — a lot of characters and a lot of scenes (if this were a play the stage crew would be marathon-level exhausted by the final act).

There were parts that dragged a bit and sometimes seemed redundant, especially in Emilia’s chapters. If I had been able to appreciate more of the Shakespearean references that Picoult weaves into those chapters — as notated at the end of the book — it probably would have enhanced my reading experience. But I’m a former English major who actually studied some Shakespeare (albeit more than two decades ago), so I have to question how much this will appeal to the masses.

By Any Other Name takes the often questioned legitimacy of Shakespeare’s authorship and makes a compelling case while weaving in a modern story that Picoult uses to show how far we’ve come as a society but also how far we have to go. It’s a long but worthwhile journey if you like strong female characters or you’re captivated by the idea that Romeo and Juliet may have been penned by a woman. B+ —Meghan Siegler

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