The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel Read online

  “It’s a fake.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “If it’s a gift, why didn’t he admit he wrote it?”

  “You are such an ingrate! He had Shakespeare write a play about his boy! Like when he got that baseball player you idolized to sign a ball for you.”

  “That was a fake, too, Dana. I threw it out years ago.”

  “Oh, my God. You are such a bastard. I was there when he signed it. I was with him.”

  “Well, there you go then.”

  “No. Him. Dad saw your guy downtown, in front of the IDS, and he asked him to wait while he went and bought a baseball. The guy—Crew?—”

  “Rod Carew.”

  “—Carew. Carew was in a hurry, and he said, ‘No, sorry, mister, let’s just do it at the ballpark,’ all that, and Dad could see he was going to lose this opportunity to make you happy, and so he said, ‘Guard my little girl, Mr. Carew!’ and then Dad just ran off and left me there with a strange baseball player. First, your hero was a little annoyed, then I got him to see it was funny, and he laughed about it, and then I talked to Rod Carew for fifteen minutes, told him about you, and then Dad came back with a ball, and Rod Carew signed it for you.”

  “I don’t believe you. Why have you never told me that?”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Who wrote the play, Dana?”

  “Ask your professors.”

  “I’m asking you. You can’t tell who wrote it? I thought Shakespeare was a god, the giant, head and shoulders better, the greatest writer ever to touch English, inimitable!”

  “No. The plays are inimitable. Arthur included.”

  “Who wrote it? Come on, who wrote it?” I kept demanding, more and more aggressively, the best words available to express my anger at her for taking Dad’s side, for standing between me and the love of my life. “Come on, Dana. Billion-dollar question. Who wrote it? Who? Teach me, smarty. Who?”

  She stood up, picked up her coat, and walked out, yelling from the hall, “Shakespeare wrote it! Dick.”

  She cooled off enough to write me a few hours later:

  FROM: dsp

  DATE: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:41:42 -0600

  SUBJECT: you suck you suck you suck

  Ok. You make me a straw man. You make me hold all the dumb, weak-ass arguments so you can whip them (me) and prove how smaaaht you are. You are, but not because of this.

  I don’t care who wrote it—plain enough? I don’t want the money, so don’t publish it on my account. I don’t love the man from Stratford more than I love you. I don’t even say I like his plays more than I like your books, ok? Sorry about that before, but isn’t this good enough? How’d I do?? That’s the real thing you want to know, isn’t it? You’re as original as he is? As good? Fine. You are. I promise. Now please please cut it out.

  Just leave well enough alone. Because you don’t know what you don’t know? Because you might do more harm by meddling? Because I like it very very much. Each time I read it I like it more.. I am fully prepared to continue loving it if it’s his or if it’s Dad’s. (Has it ever occurred to you, by the way, that maybe mom wrote it? Or me? And dad only helped us with the paper and ink? All three of us toiling away, just to impress you?)) I think it should be read and performed. I might stage it myself if I ca nwrestle the rights from you, Shylock.

  What about “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”? He didn’t say “an accredited thing”. So let it go out into the world and make some people happy. A thing of beauty. A joy.

  Let it happen, please. Please. For me. Let people think it’s Shakespeare’s, because it is, or it might be, or it might as well be, and then people will read it. And some of them will like it. And then if it’s actually Dad’s? And people like it? Then what a gift you are giving him! He wants to impress you and you’re letting him show off to the world FOR YOU (even if you know better).

  Your reputation. Ok. Think of a reputation not as a monument, but as a bank account. Now you spend a little for Dad. People read it and think it’s Shakespeare and if Dad was so pathetic as you think, then what a kindness you’re doing his ghost, the ghost of a pathetic failed man, unlike you in every way. The single most generous gift you could ever give him, proving you forgive him everything else—maybe that’s what he was asking for, in his clumsy way: forgiveness. And he was asking YOU because only YOU would know the real value of such a gift. A writer.

  You’d be doing such a mitzvah, baby!

  If it IS Shakespeare—just give it one teensy moment of your wise consideration—IF IT IS and you kick and scream that it’s not? Then either people will believe you and you’l succeed in tearing down Shakespeare himself, denying him a readership, proving, I suppose, once and for all that you’re his equal, if not absolutely his daddy. You could do that. So what of a little unstrained mercy for the lesser writer? As the better man—which I know you are—couldn’t you let him win this last one? 400 years from now no one will be reading him, but they will be reading you, so you could graciously lend your name to this project, say something nice. Stand aside and let the fellow have his day? As a favor to your sister, who still has a soft spot for him, even though she hereby acknowledges THAT SHE PREFERS YOUR WRITING AND YOU ARE A BETTER WRITER! Hemingway admitted he was no Tolstoy. Mailer admitted he was no Hemingway. I am sure Shakespeare would admit he was no Phillips, if he could.

  Or, on the iron-fisted other hand, hold on one more second! THEY WON’T BELIEVE YOU. You’ll scream “fraud!” and they’ll laugh. You’ll be worse than the anti-Strat clowns. The serious American novelist who can’t even recognize Shakespeare when he reads it? Not good, Arthur M. Phillips, author of this, that, and the other thing, not good at all All your work will be dismissed at once: “You read Phillips? That Shakespeare dolt? Nobody reads him anymore.”

  Think about it, bitch!

  ps: Seriously? Seriously? Seriously? Shakespeare wrote it.

  42

  DATE: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:33:56 -0600

  TO: Jennifer Hershey

  CC: Marly Rusoff

  SUBJECT: Bad problem

  Jennifer, I am so very sorry to write this, especially considering your excitement last week. I really am at a loss. I am kind of in a state, to be honest. I feel like an ass. But we have to stop. I have changed my mind about this. I think we’re dealing with a fake. A really good fake, obviously, but a fake. I’m so sorry. Can you start turning this ship around? Of course, I will return the advance in full. (Please arrange, Marly.) SO SO sorry. Arthur.

  FROM: “Hershey, Jennifer”

  DATE: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:22:42 -0500

  SUBJECT: Re: Bad problem

  Dear Arthur,

  This is probably a normal part of doing something like what we’re doing. I have to confess, I had sort of a weird night the other night. I woke up at one in the morning, and I was sure it was all wrong, somehow someone took us for a ride. Have you had nights like this too? I have never been involved in anything like this. Duh! Who has, really? I think your reaction is pretty normal. Did something happen? Did you learn something you can share with me? I hope, of course, that this is all still good, but, truly, if it’s going to go bad, let’s find out now, okay? If I don’t sound more worried, it’s because we got another off the Scholars List this morning. Just before you wrote, I heard from Ball, and he writes that he “can find in the text nothing to disprove the cover’s claims.” I love that line. Not the most courageous, but still. I really think when Verre gets the final forensics report we’ll be on much thicker ice. Even better, the copyright search is going great. White has no line of heirs or assignments, and the legal team is almost done clearing Burby. Piers Strickland has been fabulous. Really, I think it’s going to be fine. Are you around today? I’m going to try your cell right now. Otherwise call me after 3 your time?

  Jennifer

  PS: I can’t make out the jpeg. Is it a postcard? Speaking of postcards, I’m attaching some stuff for you to look over. I think the art dept did a grea
t job on these. “pdf2a” is a card that would go out to all the accounts, review pages and bloggers.

  The pdf showed the two sides of a postcard. The obverse had the iconic Chandos portrait of Shakespeare (with that appealing but very unlikely gold earring) and the reverse had the words “Do you believe in miracles? April 2011.” She also sent cover designs and plans for Twitter blasts and Facebook pages. Marly, meanwhile, sent suggestions from a consultant: tchotchke proposals. T-shirts with: I’M THE DEATHSMAN OF REPOSE. Bobbleheads that, when squeezed, recited, “Thou turnmelon!” and “Flea-bit tench! Jordan-faced Pictish scroyle!” Greeting cards with black-and-white photos of little children holding hands and inside the words “One’s heart gone forth is hardly whistled home / Not when it leaves behind true-weeping love.” Online contests. Win a trip to Stratford. Win two tickets to the opening night of The Tragedy of Arthur in London’s West End. I, of all people, had enlisted in the Shakespeare Industry, twittering for him (and, like flatterers with a king, weakening him with every overstatement).

  DATE: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:30:17 -0600

  TO: Hershey, Jennifer

  CC: Marly Rusoff

  SUBJECT: Re: Bad problem

  No, you’re not totally getting me, jen. I’m saying it can’t happen. The jpeg is of some notes taken by the actual author of the play. It’s not 400 years old. We have to stop this. If you don’t see it my way—I’m not trying to be a jerk—but you have to see it my way, because I’m pulling out of this. I’m so sorry. I totally feel for you in this, too. But this is the way it has to go. A.

  FROM: “Hershey, Jennifer”

  CC: Rusoffagency

  DATE: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:50:44 -0500

  SUBJECT: Re: Bad problem

  Dear Arthur,

  Wow. This is a big deal, I get it. Let’s just talk later today, and maybe think about this option, which is that you can take your name off this. As I said, we don’t know yet, none of us know for sure. Let’s wait for a dozen more reviews from the Scholars List. Let’s definitely wait for forensics and stylometry. We’re not ready yet, none of us, to say it’s a definite. And IF the conclusion is that it’s authentic and IF you still aren’t comfortable with that conclusion, then you can take your name off it. The Intro should be an academic’s problem and responsibility, anyway, to be honest. You’ve done enough, you don’t need that headache. I’m sure we can make it so you still own your share of royalties either way. Let’s talk today, okay? We don’t need to rush anything yet. One thing I won’t let you do is make a rash decision, and I know you won’t let us proceed unless we’re all 100% convinced.

  Jennifer

  I considered telling her that I’d written the play myself, just to move things along to the “swift and sure conclusion of this show of cozenage,” but I did sense that this might adversely affect my future publishing career. I chickened out.

  I didn’t answer my cell that afternoon, watched her name drift across it in blue, and then my agent’s, over and over, the both of them blinking for my attention. I had a quarto visitor scheduled, though not an official one, and I soon preferred his company to their calls. Dana’s castmate Tom, who played Palamon in The Two Noble Kinsmen, and whose passion for my sister had set so much in motion, had asked her if he could see the play. He was much younger than he appeared onstage, much younger than we, much younger even than Petra. Also, I had thought his English accent was weak on opening night but, in person, he was English.

  I didn’t bother with a nondisclosure agreement, but he mugged, “Dana says it’s all very cloak and dagger, so my lips are sealed.”

  “Whatever.”

  He sat down, looked at the cover, and turned his head this way and that. “Really?” he said. “Is this it?”

  About thirty seconds later he laughed outright. “Are you having a … Is this it?” His reaction was pure and enormously relieving, as if I had finally been released from wrongful commitment in a particularly whimsical insane asylum. “This is not Shakespeare. I’m sorry. Is this really it? The play Dana was bashing on about? I think someone is having you on.” He read a few more pages, then said, “Well, let me read the whole thing.”

  I and my wine were leaning forward in eagerness by the time he finished. “Well?”

  “It’s a parody, right? It’s not even remotely convincing. It’s nothing at all of Shakespeare. The texture is all wrong. It doesn’t move the same. This isn’t his pacing. It’s not his mindset. He was … This is not. He wouldn’t do that, start a soliloquy like that. How can I put this? The feeling of Shakespeare, which you absolutely cannot counterfeit, it’s like a fingerprint. You can’t just sound like him. You can’t sound like Mozart, either. You just can’t. Nobody can. You’re a writer, aren’t you? You know that. Nobody can sound like you, and you’re not Shakespeare. No offense. This ain’t him.”

  I normally dislike “ain’t” in any accent, especially an English one, where it sounds like a smug, coked-up viscount trying to pass as a prole whilst scoring heroin. In this case, however, I was delighted. And he was glad to go on, preening a bit while I took notes to throw back at Random House. He picked out a dozen phrases and words that had tipped him off as “dead giveaways, I’m afraid. Not raining on a parade of yours, am I?”

  “Not at all. Let it come down, Tom. Ain’t my parade at all.”

  FROM: “Hershey, Jennifer”

  DATE: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:26:35 -0500

  SUBJECT: Re: Expert input

  Arthur,

  Now I think you’re messing with my mind. Please call me back. I’m going home now but call me there or on my cell. Seriously.

  Did you look up the lines and words that were his “dead giveaways”? Every single one of them (even the one you said he called “not a chance in blue hell”) occurs in canonical Shakespeare. Every one. Check out www.shakespeareswords.com or some other concordance. I’m not saying he’s a fool, and I appreciate you passing on the opinions of naysayers, too. We definitely want all opinions. But in this case, I think this guy’s reaction reflects something other than careful reading of the play without prejudice. I actually think, if we get the authentication and we publish the play (IF IF IF), we’re still going to get a lot of responses like your friend’s here. People might be more afraid of looking foolish than of missing the boat. I think that’s sort of natural. You say to yourself, “This can’t be. It’s too good to be true.” And then you find reasons to disbelieve and get mad, prove you can’t be suckered. It’s almost a false syllogism. “I do know Shakespeare and I don’t know this, so this must not be Shakespeare.” Anyhow. Please call.

  Tom had gone (dissuaded with difficulty from a long, boozy chat about Dana and her possible feelings for him), and I did go back and check online: terms of manage, extraught, endamagement, whinyard, archaic spellings like unckle, phrasings like “In litter sick, did he still lead.” (“No,” said Tom. “Just come on. Not him. No chance. No.”)

  Jennifer was right. Nothing wedged under Tom’s skin more irritatingly than words Shakespeare had used but that Tom didn’t recall and that then seemed to him to be parodies of Shakespearean writing. His certainty was odd, because nothing else he’d said could be measured or proven. Pacing? Mindset? Texture? Fingerprint? I don’t know, but I’m sure that this lovesick actor was, in general, right, even if all his specifics were wrong. Still, Jennifer was right, too: his reaction demonstrated something about how a certain type of Shakespeare lover will feel at first exposure to a newly discovered work (if such a thing ever comes to light).

  I also felt sympathy for Jennifer and all of Random House, and for my agent, who had sat in those meetings and put her reputation on the line and whose nurturing voicemails I couldn’t bear replying to. Random House has gone to great expense, and they expect a massive return, and everyone in publishing is on the ropes right now, and this would be grand, “game-changing.” I get it. But, more than that, Jennifer is a true believer, and she was (still is) about to attach her name and credibility to something that she
understandably views as the most important event of her career, and a monumental gift to literature and culture. And there I was muttering, “Get out, get out, get out.” I’m sure that was unpleasant. But she’s going to feel worse next year, after publication. Sorry, Jen.

  FROM: “Hershey, Jennifer”

  DATE: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:11:08 -0500

  SUBJECT: Re: Mounting evidence

  I’d rather do this on the phone. But I’ll stay up all night emailing if you want. I feel like I’m talking you off a ledge. But I promise you can go back on the ledge later, all right? We will figure this out. Nobody is going to push this if there’s real evidence that it’s fake. You do know that, don’t you? I don’t want to publish a fraud. You don’t really think I would, do you? Do you think I’m that far gone? Nobody at RH wants that. Nobody. Can you still trust me that far? We and you have not been partners for eight years now for nothing. Have we ever pushed you into something you didn’t want to do? We changed the title of one novel. That’s it.

  OK. Let’s get into this. I don’t think the index card proves what you think. It doesn’t. I’ve looked at it a lot and that’s not how I read it. It could be notes of someone writing about the play, studying it, misremembering the line. Making a list of research questions? Something to take to the library instead of a 400 year old play? Don’t you think he’d be on a card numbered higher than 14 if he was already writing Act III? I also wouldn’t put it past you to forge the card!