There is a perception that the fiction of Richard B. Wright has a certain safety to it, a gentleness. You can see it in the review quotes on advance copies of his latest novel, which use words like “profound, graceful,” “subtle,” and “gently persuasive” to describe his previous fiction. All of these are true, but they mask an underlying truth: beneath the book club–friendly veneer and the elegant, seemingly effortless prose, Wright is one of our most brutal, clear-eyed, unflinching writers.
Take Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard, a novel which tells two stories. The primary narrative follows Aerlene Ward, an aging housekeeper at Easton House in Oxfordshire in 1658, as she goes about her days, settling petty fights among the staff, nurturing the family, and dictating a story to the youngest Easton daughter, Charlotte. That story is an account of Aerlene’s mother, Elizabeth. The pivotal period in Elizabeth’s short, unhappy life was the time she spent in London, working as a shopgirl. She had left her village home in disgrace, and in London she fell in love with a young actor, William Shakespeare — Aerlene’s father. Aerlene grew up with her mother’s stories of the actor, and read A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Elizabeth on her deathbed.
The bard haunts her life until the fateful afternoon when she finally meets him. Then the paired storylines unfold with a seamless beauty, eliding and complementing each other, illuminating two vastly different worlds and lives. Wright brings an easy command of social history to bear, on both life within Easton House, with its petty fiefdoms and troubled legacy, and on the squalid, crowded, wonderful streets of London. Similarly, his characterizations are compelling and rich. Even minor characters, including Elizabeth’s fundamentalist aunt, and a cross-dressing prostitute who befriends Elizabeth early in her London sojourn, are captivating and well drawn.
Readers expecting something akin to Shakespeare in Love, however, would be well advised to look elsewhere: Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard is not a frothy, joyous, bittersweet novel. Rather, like the majority of Wright’s fiction, it is rooted in pain and loss, and the sort of despair that lasts a lifetime. His love for these characters is clear, but it is a brutal, unapologetic love: he loves them for their strength, for their perseverance in the face of pain and sorrow, their resolve. For Wright, survival is a triumph, and happiness is a gift rarely received.
