- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Washington Square Press; Reprint edition (May 18 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0743464834
- ISBN-13: 978-0743464833
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.5 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 386 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #633,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
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.
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.
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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First Sentence
That day I was just about to lose my vocation, my job, my good sense, probably my mind, but what I thought I was losing was Mary Catherine O'Connor. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
That day I was just about to lose my vocation, my job, my good sense, probably my mind, but what I thought I was losing was Mary Catherine O'Connor. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
"Chasing Shakespeares",
By
This review is from: Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel (Hardcover)
I had high hopes for this book. As a fan of Shakespeare, I was hoping to experience a story of adventure, intrigue, and scholarly debate about the authorship question. While the book started out at a fast pace, I found the book slow toward the middle, and dull at the end. I want to state, while I am a Stratfordian, Smith argues a very convincing case for Oxford, actually better than some of the more astute Oxfordians have in the past.My main issue with this book is my dislike and disdain for the characters. I did not care what happened to any of them. I know I should like Joe, but I found him a cold fish. Posy is so cliché. I found her laughable and annoying. I wanted so much more for these characters and their quest, but I was left with little regard for any of it. For characters that are described as academics, their language skills, dialogue, and grasp of the subject matter leaves much to be desired. Smith seemed to believe she needed to dumb down Shakespeare for her readers, and that was the most insulting. I wanted to like this book, but I could not. I cannot recommend it, since it is plagued with so many problems that I was happy when the book was finished, and moved on to something more interesting.
3.0 out of 5 stars
casablanca ending,
By Gautam Matta (Toronto, ON CANADA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel (Hardcover)
This book was a quality read, Sarah Smith's writing flows, and it was quite pleasant. The plot of this story is fairly interesting. I have read a few Shakespeare plays and am well of aware of many others, but did not know about the controversy of his authorship. Sarah Smith provides an appealing story about the debate of whether it truly was Shakespeare who wrote all his pieces. This was a good change since perhaps I would not have been interested enough to read a researched article or non-fiction book on this subject. This book provided an effect that feels as though I might have been reading a non-fiction book. The romance in the book has a depressing ending. Joe Roper, a researcher at the Kellogg, and Posy Gould, a rich and feisty daddy's-little-girl, engage a romance which ends as they both go their separate ways. It provides a "Casablanca" ending as it doesn't end in a way that everyone rides happily into the sunset. Overall, it was a good book.
2.0 out of 5 stars
equalman review,
By
This review is from: Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel (Paperback)
This book starts out very intriguing especially for those who are Shakespeare fans and also for Shakespeare neophytes. It's good for the neophytes because you can glean a lot of information in a palatable/fictional format as presented by Smith. The book gets a bit long and painfully detailed midway through. This novel would probably be a 2.5 if the content was edited down significantly. The ending did a poor job of wrapping up the characters and story line.
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