The Marlowe Papers: A Novel
The most plausible candidate for who really wrote Shakespeare is Christopher Marlowe, who fashioned brilliant blank-verse dramas, witty love lyrics, and superb retellings of classical legends—just like Shakespeare! But he died in a fight in 1593, before the Bard’s great plays hit the boards. Ah, but what if his demise was faked? Barber’s wonderfully fluent novel in blank verse runs with the notion that Marlowe, dodging a frame-up for blasphemy, was whisked away to the continent, thanks to a wealthy friend. There he eventually wrangled a living by ghostwriting plays that a small-town businessman pretended were his. He slipped back to England to see his benefactor, who became the love of his life, and bedded the odd comely wench, too, finally marrying one. Barber doesn’t grossly betray Marlowe scholarship; things just might have happened this way. But her Marlowe is less substantial than he is in recent biographies, his bisexuality comes off as blandly pc, and the other characters, especially the rich lover, are shadowy. A high-toned period romance, at best. --Ray Olson