My Name Is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare (Hardcover)

by Jess Winfield (Author)
Key Phrases: inn yard, ale stand, pretty servant girl, Sir Thomas Lucy, Davy Jones, Philip Rogers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The two narratives in Winfield's whimsical debut are unified by their shared irreverence, humor and literary gusto. The first tale is of Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a grad student trying to prove in his hastily conceived thesis that Shakespeare was a closeted Catholic. Short on cash, stoner Willie agrees to mule a superpsychedelic mushroom and a pound of weed to a couple of Renaissance Faire enthusiasts, all the while nursing his infatuation with Dashka Demitra, his sexy thesis adviser. Willie's journey is interspersed with accounts of the other Shakespeare as he, in the months leading up to his wedding, has run-ins with hallucinatory substances and comely women while delivering a secret package to a Catholic dissident. Willie's a lovable schlemiel whose clumsy strides toward attaining a genuine understanding of Shakespeare's work mirror in many ways the Bard's quest to become the great playwright we now study. Winfield uses his deep understanding of Shakespeare's work and times (he is a founding member of the Reduced Shakespeare Company) to great effect, and his affection for the material shines throughout. (July)
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From Booklist
Winfield, cofounder of the comedy troupe Reduced Shakespeare Company, brings an intimate knowledge of the Bard as well as an infectious sense of humor to this witty first novel. In a dual narrative, we follow both Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a perpetually stoned graduate student, and the young playwright himself as he tentatively feels his way toward his destiny. Having spent the past two years struggling to come up with a master’s thesis in his Shakespeare studies, Willie finds himself desperately short of cash when his father cuts off his funding. He impulsively agrees to deliver drugs, including a gigantic psychedelic mushroom, to a buyer at the Renaissance Faire, traveling to the site with his latest infatuation, a sexy fellow grad student. Meanwhile, 18-year-old William, fond of wordplay and even fonder of women, agrees to deliver a package to an oppressed Catholic firebrand. Each story mirrors the other as the two young men gradually grow wiser about both the ways of the world and their own emotional shortcomings. Bawdy puns, a clever construction, and a deliciously irreverent sense of humor make this debut novel irresistible. --Joanne Wilkinson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Twelve (July 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446508853
• ISBN-13: 978-0446508858
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,595 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sexy, Dangerous Shakespeare for the Summer, July 22, 2008

By	Datapoint3000 (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews

Often, historical characters in fiction are portrayed in the fullness of their achievement. In "My Name Is Will", Shakespeare is presented prior to his becoming a great and well known playwright; he is eighteen, just discovering his talent and starting to figure out his life. This can be a much more interesting period of a character's life I think than the later periods. In this case, it is made even more interesting because Shakespeare is portrayed as a Catholic actively involved with the Catholic underground in England. As Shakespeare is coming to understand his own character and getting to know the bonny maids of Stratford, he is also deeply involved in dangerous intrigues at a fascinating time in English history. All of which is quite a bit of fun.

Shakespeare's story is interspersed with the story of Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a Master's student working on his thesis on Shakespeare and also discovering who he is. In parallel fashion, adroitly handled, both the historical and contemporary Shakespeares find themselves and get their lives going. I think this is one of the key narrative challenges of the piece -- making these parallel stories complement each other -- but it is adroitly handled and I would not want to give up the contemporary reflection of Shakespeare.

So...fun on many levels. The story of Elizabethan intrigue was very compelling and could have been a book in itself. The self-discovery of the lead characters was very well handled, making it a more personal and three-dimensional story. Winfield, who co-created and acted in the Reduced Shakespeare Company, has a flawless ear for Elizabethan language and punnery without which the book would not have worked; as it is, it does all come out perfectly, which greatly adds to the realism and charm of the work.

I recommend My Name Is Will to anyone who wants a little escapism, a bit of intrigue, a new look at Shakespeare and a lot of romance this summer.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bard goes into Hyperdrive, July 10, 2008

By	Better Yeti (Hollywood, CA) - See all my reviews

Fans of The Reduced Shakespeare company might wonder exactly where you go after the West End's smash-hit, longest running comedy. Or exactly what else there is to do after performing all Shakepeare's plays, night in and night out, in a scant 87 minutes. Well, wonder no more. Winfield, founding member of the RSC, has answered this conundrum with his tale of two Shakepeares -- one in Stratford-on-Avon, one at UC Santa Cruz -- reaching out and touching each other across space and time, assisted by mind-altering substances. It's a sexy, hyper-literate, romping mash-up of Shakespeare, Tom Robbins, Harold Robbins and Carlos Castaneda. It's kind of hard to resist. And if this doesn't make Shakespeare accessible to a generation of attention-deficient, youtube-addicted teenagers, well, nothing will. Read it. It's a lot of fun.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Looking at Will Shakespeare from another point of view, June 17, 2008

By	armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

Meet Willie Shakespeare Greenberg - a struggling thesis-writer, small-scale drug user and future scholar. Meet also William Shakespeare - a womanizing youth, closeted Catholic and future bard. Two men, 300 years apart in time, but joined by name and history.

My Name Is Will is the story of two Wills who have more in common than one would think at a first glance, because really - isn't it almost sacrilege to suggest that a 1986's pothead and wanna-be thesis writer should have anything at all in common with the greatest bard in English history? At the surface, one would think so, but then, how much do we know about Shakespeare's life before he became. well, Shakespeare?

Isn't it very logical to assume that his life couldn't have been all smooth sailing for him to be able to write of such passionate love and dysfunctional families as we see in his plays and sonnets? Jess Winfield clearly thinks so, and manages to weave a fascinating tale where every second chapter follows William Shakespeare in the weeks up to his marriage to Anne Hathaway, and every second chapter follows Willie Shakespeare in his quest for knowledge about himself, and his famous namesake.

In the beginning one has to get used to the jumping back and forth in time as each chapter ends, but like in Peg Kerr's The Wild Swans, the transitions work and the two stories in one mesh together very well as I constantly found hints in one of what would happen (or had happened) in the other.

My Name Is Will is subtitled "A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Shakepeare" for a good reason. It is not very reverent, and Shakespeare lovers who are easily offended should probably stay clear of the book. However, I appreciated seeing even a fictionalized human side of the legendary bard. It is perhaps not a very scholarly read, but definitely a very enjoyable one.

Oh and yes, we are given at least a hint of an answer to the old and burning question: why did Shakespeare leave Anne his "second-best bed" in his will.

Armchair Interviews says: Learn and laugh at the same time.