Hearts on the Table
In this novel for young adults, Metallo incorporates LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent identities into a rollicking retelling of Shakespeare’s wry exploration of gender-bent romance, Twelfth Night. In Metallo’s imagining, the shipwrecked twins Viola and Sebastian become Violet, a young English Italian suffragette, and her trans brother, Seb. Escaping from an abusive father who wants to marry them both off, they arrive on the shores of Illyria, off the eastern coast of Italy, separated by a U-boat attack on their Italian ship. The island they encounter is torn by conflicting loyalties: the Kingdom of Dalmatia that the island is part of is on the Austro-Hungarian side of World War I, but part of the island’s population are émigrés from Italy, on the opposing side of the war. Violet (as in the play) dresses as a young Sicilian man in order to search for her missing brother, and is rescued and befriended by an Illyrian nobleman, Téo, who enlists his new pal to carry love notes to the woman he loves, Olivia.
Anyone who knows the play will understand that the farcical plot is too complex to summarize neatly. Metallo takes this framework and lends it depth and a more modern sensibility by imagining Feste, Olivia’s jester, as Faustina, Olivia’s neurodivergent little sister. The novel alternates between Violet’s prickly, headstrong point of view and the more empathic insights of musical prodigy Faustina, whose voice is rendered in poetic images and verse.
YA readers will appreciate the diversity of characters and viewpoints, as well as the sensitivity with which Metallo balances Shakespeare’s comic situations with more historically, politically, and emotionally realistic issues. Violet learns that gender and affection are not masks you wear but are deep expressions of your inmost self; there’s also plenty of humor and adventure to keep the pages turning.
