Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper

"I cursed him and began to cry. This man did not deserve my tears, my time, my love. It was flattering perhaps, in some perverted way, that he was sometimes jealous of me, but he had no right---no right, but that I loved him and ever would, and he surely yet loved me above all safety and sanity."
                                                -from the novel


After plodding through the mostly depressing A Casual Vacancy, this novel was a breath of fresh air! Although I am no anglophile and my knowledge of Shakespeare is minimal, I really enjoyed the novel.

The story is told by Shakespeare's first wife, Anne Whately, wed to him only days before he is forced to marry the pregnant Anne Hathaway. She tells us that she and Will were friends from childhood and lovers after that until he dies. At the beginning of this fictional memoir, Mistress Shakespeare gives the reader "the rendering of [her] thoughts, emotions, and experiences [which are] part comedy and part tragedy as well as history, for life is such a mingling. And so, [she writes] this report of the woman born Anne Rosaline Whately, she who both detested and adored a man named William Shakespeare." This is the story in a nutshell.

Through half a century Anne and Will again and again disagree, separate and come back together. They survive deaths of friends and family members, political witch hunts, fire and plague, despair and phenomenal success. To Will, Anne is muse, assistant and even rescuer---more than once. It has been said that behind every great man is a woman and in this novel Queen Elizabeth is quoted as saying something similar to Anne Whately. If the premise of the book is to be believed the woman behind Shakespeare was Anne Whately, wife "not of his hearth but of his heart."

I gave Mistress Shakespeare a rating of 4. I especially liked the quotes from Shakespeare's works which made me want to attend a play or at least see the movie "Shakespeare in Love."

When the book club met to discuss the novel, one member went to some trouble to find and prepare recipes from the period, including an odd gingerbread. Along with those items, hot apple cider and apple crisp provided lovely refreshment for the group. We had a lively discussion using questions from the author's website. Members' ratings averaged 3.9. Among the observations and comments were:

• the author's use of quasi-Elizabethan language was annoying
• the story was believable
• hearing such a revered literary figure as Shakespeare called "Will" was surprising and difficult to get used to
• there is interest in reading other works by this author

Mistress Shakespeare is an entertaining read, at the very least.