Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel [Paperback]

Sarah Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2004

With this exhilarating novel from the author the San Francisco Chronicle calls "daring" and "splendid," Sarah Smith cuts to the heart of one of literature's most fascinating and enduring mysteries: the enigma of Sir William Shakespeare.

Meet Joe Roper, a thoroughly modern graduate student who has landed the job of a lifetime working in the famed Kellogg Collection of Elizabethan texts and curiosities. He's been passionate about Shakespeare since reading a duct-taped paperback copy of Macbeth as a kid. But if all the world's a stage, Joe's working-class roots do little to prepare him for his role in the academic arena. Enter Posy Gould, stage right. A glamorous rising star at Harvard, she insists that a letter Joe's found, signed by one W. Shakespeare of Stratford, is a career-making discovery for them both -- particularly because the letter suggests that the plays were not written from Shakespeare's quill. What follows is a literary adventure story that places Joe and Posy in a world where the London Eye looks out over Shakespeare's city, Hollywood producers rub elbows with the Queen's court, and an unsolved mystery spans across five centuries and two continents. A first-rate thriller from one of the masters of the genre, Chasing Shakespeares is also an enduring tale about love, art, and poetic justice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Smith's (A Citizen of the Country) compelling mystery/love story about a self-professed "hick from Vermont," window installer/Shakespeare scholar Joe Roper discovers evidence in a university archive that might refute the Bard's authorship of his hallowed canon. If Joe announces his find, it could make his career as a literary scholar-but it would also mean betraying his beloved mentor, Roland Goscimer, who's on the cusp of publishing part two of his long-awaited Shakespeare biography. Posy Gould, a flashy, aggressive Harvard student, who believes the Earl of Oxford is the author of the canon, jets with Joe to England to resolve the matter by sleuthing through libraries, graveyards, castles and stately homes-and, vicariously, through the glitter and duplicity of the Elizabethan stage and court. Smith, a Harvard Ph.D., knows academia can be as hazardous as cocktails with the Borgias and renders that world well, while making the Shakespeare authorship controversy as riveting as any film noir plot bursting with bodies. She's also a sharp yet economical stylist who can capture a character in a couple of sentences: "The woman in the doorway looked like Princess Diana, if Princess Diana had lived until fifty and worked real hard on the bulimia.... Silvia was goggle-eyed, with an asphalt road of eyeliner on each lid." This is a complex book about attachment and ambition, the clash of class and culture, with its settings-Boston and Britain-vividly drawn. It's a worthy addition to Smith's already impressive output.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Smith, who recently completed a historical-suspense trilogy (The Vanished Child, 1992; The Knowledge of Water, 1996; A Citizen of the Country, 2000), here turns to a literary mystery. Joe Roper, a blue-collar boy with ambition, attends Northeastern and has been selected to catalog an extensive collection of Elizabethan materials going back 100 years, donated by a rich businessman. Privileged Posy Gould, a glamorous Harvard grad student, is miffed that Joe has been put in charge of the collection. She talks him into jetting off to London to authenticate a letter signed by Shakespeare, admitting that he was merely a front for the true author of the plays. Joe, enamored of the Goulds' expensive London digs and the exotic Posy, suddenly finds he is in way over his head. Although the research details, quoted liberally here, are sometimes murky, Smith shines in her evocation of both the exhilaration of scholarship ("God is a librarian") and the vast breadth of Shakespeare's knowledge ("he'd been in every dark place that is"). Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (May 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743464834
• ISBN-13: 978-0743464833
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover the Shakespeare game, November 15, 2003

By 

Arnost Cerny (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chasing Shakespeares : A Novel (Hardcover)

I think this is a great book. I read many plays by Shakespeare, but knew almost nothing about the authorship controversy, and would be unlikely to ever gather enough interest to read a non-fiction article or book on this subject. It takes great skill for an author to introduce such a topic in a work of fiction. While I only partially followed her discussions about good and bad verse, the arguments were rich and entertaining. Also, I greatly admired the author's ability to spin such a spectacle of wild tales, and yet keep the story together in the end. Her knowledge of nuances of the academic environment is also precise. I give this book a definite ``thumbs up''.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing, and also a great introduction to the authorship question..., February 24, 2006

By 

Heather A. Teysko "heatherteyskodotcom" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel (Paperback)

I remember vaguely hearing about the authorship mystery in high school, but had never really read about it. This book was in my amazon.com recommendations, and I bought it because it seemed interesting.

I have a degree in history and know a lot about British history, having also lived there for a while. But I've never been a huge Shakespeare fan, so a lot of the references were really obscure and didn't really mean much to me. I liked this book, though, because I could sort of skim over a lot of that obscure stuff and still not feel like I missed much.

I absolutely loved the writing - I lived in London, and her descriptions took me right back. The character development was stunning. The plot twist totally shocked me. And it got me really interested in the authorship mystery and has inspired me to read further about it.

My only gripe would be that there were times when it did move a bit slow for me, but that was mostly because it was when Joe was doing some bit of research which was being described in great detail, so I would just skip ahead a few paragraphs.

Definitely a great book!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Treachery..., February 22, 2006

By 

Carolyn "Author of Every Little Step She Take... (Sherrill's Ford, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel (Paperback)

I read this book during a trip to Hawaii. I read it on the plane, in my hotel room (in fact, the pages are now warped because I dropped it in my bath), on the beach, and then, after I got home, I read it all again.

I bought the book hoping it would be a bit like "Possession" by A.S. Byatt, a literary mystery with a romance, yet more interesting because the author of the disputed material would be real, would be Shakespeare.

What I found was that the characters were real, too.

I could identify with Joe, trying to imagine himself as a biographer of Shakespeare, trying to imagine who he might be, could be, while not realizing that his life - as it was - was also a story worth writing. And when he loses his religion - ah, I could identify with that as well.

The mystery of the authorship question was quite enough to keep me reading. The scraps of paper, the little crumbs of clues, certainly intrigued me, as did the unfolding drama between the characters - Joe, Mary Cat, Posy, the Goscimers. I liked the contrast between Joe's Dad and Posy's father, between Mary Cat's dilemma and Joe's and Posy's, all trying to determine who they were, and overcome the barriers on the way. All defining themselves, even as Joe tried to define who Shakespeare really was.

But ah, the treachery. As insidious as Cecil's. It took me by surprise and was the direct cause of the aforementioned book-dunking.

Having reached the end of the story, I immediately wanted to reread it, to catch for myself more of the clues. To me, that's the sign of a good, involving book - that I don't want it to be over.

I highly recommend the book. Read it twice. And oh, one note of correction - the 1947 Buick was actually highly reliable.