Such As We Are Made Of
This is a layered and richly imagined historical drama that combines the fascinating world of William Shakespeare, his knowledge that words are more powerful than weapons, and the dangerous intrigues of Elizabethan England. But its emotional centre are young players John and Jack. John is caught between the joy of becoming someone else on stage and the painful memories of his past that make even the love he longs for frightening, while the political dangers surrounding Shakespeare’s theatre threaten to destroy everything he has built. Thus, the novel explores love that survives separation, jealousy, ambition and the uneasy boundary between performance and reality. Its central idea – words can preserve love and manipulate crowds – is appropriate for a story centred on Shakespeare.
Besides John, what makes this story stand out is its Shakespearean echo: lovers are separated by circumstance, identities are mistaken, plenty of intrigue, and memorable theatrical performance, while bawdy humour and moments of unexpected tenderness are woven through the narrative. Clarissa Pattern’s writing moves comfortably between romance, comic theatre, and darker historical drama, creating a tantalizing atmosphere throughout, in which laughter often sits but a page away from fear. I appreciated the mirror image created by the first and last chapters, one promising freedom and possibility, the other answering it – yet both ultimately bound by the same fragile thread of love and hope. Readers who enjoy historical fiction with a strong theatrical element, complicated love stories, or characters whose lives are caught in the machinery of history will find much to savor in this book. Above all, this is a story about people trying to survive the roles that history seems to have written for them while discovering that, sometimes, the only weapon they possess is the ability to change the script.
