Monday, August 6, 2018

Book Note: Suite Scarlett

Johnson, Maureen. Suite Scarlett. New York: Point, 2009.

It took me a while to gather up the gumption to read this book, but I'm glad I did. It's a pretty well-written story with a little bit of Shakespeare thrown in.

The plot involves a family that owns an old hotel in New York City. At one point, it was luxurious, but now it's pretty faded. Each child in the family, when they come of age, is given a specific room to care for.

Our protagonist is given a suite that is soon filled by an over-the-top character.

In the meantime, her brother is trying to convince his parents to let him pursue acting as a career. He has a role in an Broadway production of Hamlet (well, the address is on Broadway, but it's in no way part of the legitimate theatre.

That's where the Shakespeare enters in. Here are a few sample pages:



The book isn't my general cup of tea, but I did appreciate the characters and the integration of the Shakespearean elements of the plot.

Click here to purchase the book from amazon.com.

No comments:

Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest