Jodi Picoult's masterful new novel, BY ANY OTHER NAME, tackles a question that has been bandied about regarding the most famous of playwrights, William Shakespeare. Did that man, revered for over 400 years, really write the plays with which he is credited? These plays feature outspoken, feminist women and a Jew who utters an extraordinarily sympathetic speech, and many are set in locations that Shakespeare had never visited, like Italy and Denmark.

Some have posited that a number of the plays that have been attributed to Shakespeare were, in fact, written by a woman and others. In Shakespeare's time, even though a woman ruled England, other women were little more than chattel, to be sold or married off. Women were often illiterate; only the wealthy usually educated their daughters. Emilia Bassano, a real person who lived a most unusual life, is one of the book’s main characters, as is her fictional descendant, Melina Green. Both women are Jewish, but while Emilia must hide her religion at a time and place of severe antisemitism, Melina is free to practice her religion (or not) as she sees fit.

This breathtaking novel is written in three distinct parts. There is Emilia's life in the past, Melina's life in the present, and the pages of the script of the play that Melina writes about Emilia's life, which plays an important role in the story. The script pages, ostensibly written by Melina in the future, presage what we read about Emilia's life as the narration takes us back to the past. Both the present and past narrations are clearly marked --- Melina's with the year, Emilia's with the year and her ages.

"The ending of BY ANY OTHER NAME --- by turns inspiring, tragic, hopeful, heartbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful --- is one that will leave many readers with damp eyes."

Just as "Shakespeare" wrote plays in which people were not always who they appeared to be, often hiding their true natures, and just as Emilia hid her authorship of the plays behind Shakespeare's name in order for them to be published, Picoult creates a situation in the present wherein Melina must hide her authorship of the play about Emilia in order for her play to be performed and seen. But this pretext that spans time, that women must pretend their writing was authored by men in order to have it seen, causes unforeseen repercussions not only to Melina's professional life, but to her personal life as well.

While we meet Melina as a young woman and follow her life for the next 14 years, we see Emilia's life from the age of 12 to her death at the relatively advanced age of 76. Her father was a court musician, and her family was from Italy. But when he died and her mother went into service with another aristocrat, Emilia went to live with the Countess of Kent. The Countess was kind, but when she remarried, Emilia was sent to live with an older man, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, to be his paramour.

After Emilia finds out that her own family basically sold her to secure their place in court, she leaves their home, furious and heartbroken. Picoult writes, "She stepped into the night, drew the stars around her like a cloak, and grew up in the space of a heartbeat." Both women in the story are writers, and Emilia is also a poet. Picoult's own writing reminds us that to be a truly magnificent author, one also must be a poet, a creator of imagery and metaphor.

Throughout Emilia's history, we see over and over how she was denied any ownership over her writing, except for a collection of poems she publishes later in life. Picoult imagines that she befriended Christopher Marlowe, another playwright of the period. He teases her at one point, asking how she can call herself a writer if she doesn't like it. Emilia responds, "I can't, Kit." She can't call herself a writer. Women weren't allowed to put pen to their thoughts. Men weren't interested in hearing them. And that, we find as we read on, has not changed much in 400 years.

This was a time in England when the Puritans tried to have theaters shut down, claiming that they were the work of the devil and made people immoral. We read, "Emilia understood the true motivations: a play might make its viewers think. And when people thought, instead of blindly following the Gospel, they escaped from your control." And with that, Picoult exposes a truth that has stood the test of time. Even today, there are swaths of people who want to ban books, including Picoult's own, because of the thoughts and truths that they express. As she so perspicaciously writes in this novel, these individuals are as narrow-minded as the Puritans were 400 years ago. They don't want any books that might make people think; they want blind obeisance.

It's hard to conceive of the depth and breadth of Picoult's research as Emilia's whole life and even the dialogue in her sections of the novel reflect the actions and dialogue in various Shakespeare plays. She uses many of his plays, including "The Taming of the Shrew," where we see the sarcasm in the words that Emilia puts in Kate's mouth and how those phrases relate to Emilia's life with her terribly abusive husband. Picoult sees through the language that appears to show Kate cowed by her husband, as she writes, "And for those who were truly paying attention --- the speech in which Kate declared herself well and duly silenced was the longest monologue in the entire show."

Picoult continues with the question of why a woman's voice appears to be so terrifying to a man. She concludes that maybe it's because "[i]f she took herself seriously, others might do the same. Other women. Scores of women. And that just might erode the power men had always effortlessly held." Think of the Women's March. Think about the power of the women's vote in the next election. Think about one of the two candidates for President of the United States. While many try to hinder us while controlling our bodies and minds, we aren't taking it lying down. Women are determined to go forward, not backward.

Picoult clearly lays out how miserable a woman's life was in those Shakespearean days and how little agency she had over anything. A husband would control every aspect of his wife’s life --- and if he killed her, no one cared.

But as much as we are rapt with fascination at Emilia's life, we also are invested in Melina's troubles. Melina's play, based on Emilia, is sent out under a false name so that the judges in a contest don't know it was written by a woman. And thus the comedy of errors begins.

Melina's goal is to right the wrong perpetrated all those years ago to give Emilia the respect, admiration and voice that she has been due. But just as in Shakespeare's comedies, there is often a tragic twist, so Picoult creates one that seems to derail what Melina is attempting. But as Shakespeare (or Emilia) might say, "All's well that ends well."

The ending of BY ANY OTHER NAME --- by turns inspiring, tragic, hopeful, heartbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful --- is one that will leave many readers with damp eyes. The brilliant interplay of the past, the present and the script of the play, which itself serves as a transition between the two time periods and main characters, all work together seamlessly to create a story that occasionally seems to transcend time. Emilia and Melina are so much alike in some ways, yet their lives are so different in others, and we adore them both. We want them to achieve the acclaim and respect they deserve.

But life isn't always fair, and we must reflect on the question that Picoult asks: Is putting beauty out into the world enough in and of itself? Is it enough to know the work of art, or must we also know the artist? The burning question: Is it enough to have written the words and the feelings so that the world sees them, or must the creator of those words be recognized for having created them? When you are a woman, both are essential.