I do not write book reviews and certainly never negative reviews. I think people can like what they like, read what they want to read, and we can all eff off. However, this is a negative review of Jodi Picoult’s latest novel, By Any Other Name, so if you’re a fan of hers, better not read on.
My intense dislike of this particular novel is I think indicative of a much larger problem in the publishing world, whether that is self publishing or trad publishing.
We all know that editing is a crucial step in the publishing process, but I think as important as an editor is, a developmental editor is arguably more important. Now what is a developmental editor, you may be asking? A developmental editor looks at your story, your characters, your setting and tells you what works, what doesn’t, and how you can make your story better.
And here comes my critique. By Any Other Name is Jodi Picoult’s first attempt at historical fiction. I was excited about the novel, not because I like Jodi Picoult, I find most of her stories and writing to be saccharine and too emotional. But I adore historic fiction. I wasn’t thrilled that she chose the Elizabethan era as her back drop (I mean c’mon, there are some eras that we really need to stop publishing historic fiction in, ie. Tudor England, Elizabethan England, Regency Era, basically any era that has to do with Britain, World War II…etc) but the topic was very interesting. There seems to be a cohort of historians who believe that while William Shakespeare was a real person, there is some evidence that he did not write the plays attributed to him and were rather the work of several people, including several women. Love that. Taking back a little piece of history for the ladies? Yes. Excellent. Grand. Let’s give them the due that they deserve, even if it is a fictionalized version, it’s better than nothing.
In By Any Other Name Picoult chose one such woman as the main character for the novel; Emilia Bassano.
Side note: that’s the other thing in historic fiction I’m good with us losing; the duel timeline of the relative or the researcher’s story being as important as the historic one. Especially since Picoult has essentially made both main female characters have the exact same storyline. Boring. Let’s just focus on the history.
Not much primary documentation is available in regards to Emilia, however a few records do exist from “physicians,” “pharmacists,” and an astrologer named Simon Forman. I put these professions in quotes as they are distinctly not what we have come to know. One of the few things that seem to be fact was that when Emilia was 18 or so, she became the mistress to the Lord Chamberlin, Henry Carey. Of all the creative liberties Picoult could have taken in a novel such as this, she decided that it would be prudent to make Emilia’s character in her book the ripe age of 14 when she became a mistress. Now, it is not to say that within Elizabethan England, 14 year olds never became mistresses, but why WHY would you do that? Why would you take an already very young age to be thrust into such a sexual scenario and decide to make her younger and not just that but 14? GROSS.
This is what I was talking about with editors. First and foremost, I don’t care how many millions of books Picoult has sold and I don’t care how many millions of dollars she’s made for her publisher. Her editor should have stopped her. They never should have allowed her to publish that and a good developmental editor would have told her as much.
As soon as I learned that fact about Emilia, I immediately stopped reading the book. I had a visceral reaction and now I have all the more reason to not pick up one of Picoult’s books again.
That’s it, that’s the critique. I will say Susan Turner did a wonderful job designing the book cover.
Yes, I realize the link only goes to Bookshop.org, because I don’t want you to buy By Any Other Name, but I do want you to support booksellers who are not amazon 😏.
Also, here’s a link to my own shop, The Rolodex Revival, because SEO “experts” tell me outbound internal links are important. 🤷♀️