Juliet - Anne Fortier

I played Benvolio in my high school production of Romeo and Juliet. At first, I was pretty pissed about it.  The thought of having to prance around on stage in a floppy hat and breeches instead of a pretty dress and flower wreath in my hair was enough to kill the confidence of any 16 year old girl. I was not the only one though, there were a few of us girls in goofy hats on stage. While our drama teacher said he did it on purpose to counter balance all those years when women were played by men, I now know the real reason so many girls played male parts was the uneven gender distribution of our drama department. Once we got into rehearsals though, and I realized playing Romeo’s blander, more logical cousin meant I got to learn how to sword fight and make dirty jokes on stage, albeit it in a language nobody could understand, it was actually fun.

And that’s when my love affair with Romeo and Juliet and Mr. Shakespeare started. It’s strange; I’m not really a poetry person. I find it dizzying and frustrating, and want to yell “JUST SAY IT” when I read poetry. But somehow, I get Shakespeare. I love the language and the drama and the fact that something written hundreds of years ago still resonates in our world. That’s a powerful writer, one who can transcend time that way.

This love of Shakespeare, and my thing for historical fiction and … I don’t know, what do you call the genre that created Wicked  and The Red Tent- the commonly known story told from an alternate point of view -  Retold Fiction? Fictionalized Fiction? is what drew me to Juliet by Anne Fortier when I walked passed it at the book store.

I approached it with trepidation though. And I stood in the isle for a while wondering if it would be worth it, if I trusted this person to treat this story with the respect it deserved.   So hoping it was not going to be just some cheesy riff on the star-crossed lovers thing – West Side Story without the music – I decided to give it a go.

And I have to say, for the most part, I am thrilled to find an engaging and fresh new way to approach this story. One that most people take for granted. Fortier and her mother did a tremendous amount of research and dug up evidence of the true origins of who Romeo and Giulietta really were. I’ve taken enough Shakespeare classes to know that he didn’t invent this story, but was floored by the detail Fortier was able to find about a couple of teenagers who died in the 1300s. Not to mention all the other details that fill the book; the families, streets and customs that make up medieval Siena.

I say for the most part because I loved the chapters that dealt with the historical story. Those were amazing.  The alternating chapters set today didn’t quite do it for me all the way. The modern story focuses on Julie Jacobs, who finds out she is a direct descendant of the real Giulietta while on an adventure that rivals that of Professor Langdon.

When we met Julie, she is, frankly, kind of a pain in the ass. She has the self-esteem of a dishrag after a lifetime of ridicule and mocking at the hands of her twin sister.  Now, I have a sister. So I get the whole my sister installed my buttons so she knows how to push them thing. But come on, at 25, you should have gotten over it by now. Instead, Julie spends the first half of the book dwelling on every childhood joke, ever teenage taunt. Eventually, Julie does grow a backbone and thank goodness it is not because of a man otherwise I would have found my own balcony to throw the book off of.  

So, if you know Rome and Juliet and want to gain an alternate perspective, and don’t some modern day romance mixed  in with a bit of a treasure hunt and a kooky old artist, then this is a book you should check out.