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THE ACTOR AND THE EARL by Rebecca Cohen Reviewed by Mel Keegan ISBN-13: 978-1-62380-151-9 See also Duty to the Crown, reviewed by Mel Keegan
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women in it merely players … and some of those men are playing at being women on that stage -- and off it, too. In a nutshell, this is the scenario behind Rebecca Cohen’s The Actor and the Earl, an m/m romance set in London and the home counties during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The actor is Sebastian Hewel, a young man at the twilight of his drag career. As a youth he was convincing “dressed as girl ” -- the script term from which the familiar expression “drag” derives -- but with his 20th birthday rapidly approaching, he’ll be competing with the legion of male actors for a very limited range of parts. His career is as good as over, and he knows it. In all probability, it’s sheer desperation behind his decision to fall in with his family’s hare-brained plan to save the Hewel honor and repay a debt. Without plot spoilers, Sebastian agrees to pose as his identical twin, the disagreeable Bronwyn, for just long enough to see her arranged marriage go through as planned -- but as Robert Burns noted, some centuries later, the best laid plans of mice and men, not to mention women and drag performers, can usually be depended upon to go pear shaped. And this one does. None of the Hewels expected Bronwyn’s betrothed to instantly recognize Sebastian, frock, wig and all; but the roguish Anthony, Earl Crofton, is a theater aficionado and saw Sebastian as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing only days before. And thereby hangs the tail. Earl Crofton swings both ways with a vengeance, and while apparently the virginal Sebastian makes a somewhat homely girl, he’s devastating as a young man. Moreover, against everyone’s advice, Sebastian falls like the proverbial load of bricks for Anthony, and the book’s action pivots on a sticky question: does the earl love the actor, or not? The Actor and the Earl is not merely m/m but also what I term a pure romance, by which I mean there’s no other plot driver (Hitchcock called it “the maguffin” -- the device that makes the story go). This is very far from my usual reading, but the background of the Elizabethan theater and the plot idea were irresistible. In style, the book reminds me of Heyer (yes, don’t faint; Keegan has read Heyer). It’s inclined to frivolity, can be giddy, and the prose can tickle the purple zone at times with phrases like “…so cruelly torn away.” I would have wished for more about the theater, since this is one of my major fascinations with this era, but as the reader should know, this isn’t a book about the Elizabethan era, much less about the world of Shakespeare and Marlowe! (If you’re looking for something along those lines, try At the Sign of the Swan Crafting a pure romance, Rebecca Cohen’s challenge was to create characters likable and interesting enough to keep me turning pages till the end, because the characters and their mutual angst are the entire plot. I came to like Sebastian and Anthony, feisty cousin Claire and the real sister Bronwyn, and was pleased to turn pages. Parts of the novel are quite witty; in one or two places, the humor inspires a chuckle. The days of Elizabeth I are constructed quite skillfully according to the Hollywood and bodice-ripper formula: we don’t have to contend with the fact people had rotten teeth, women were old by their late twenties, and so on. If you want to say this renders the book a fantasy, so be it. I don’t have a problem here, because I actually find the reality quite depressing. The only detraction in the world building is where modern expressions and Americanisms impede the suspension of disbelief. Especially in the first half of the book, one encounters hurdles like “nightstand” (Brits say bedside table), and “do a double take” (jargon deriving from cinematography), and “wakeup call” (a fairly recent Americanism that's invaded Britspeak in the last few decades), and so forth. If you are, or were, English, this can be distracting. One of the undeniable strengths of the work is in the details regarding women’s ridiculous clothing, and how damnably uncomfortable, even unhealthy, it was. When women were tortured by corsets, who noticed their attacks of the vapors? Put the same costume on a man, and -- good grief, he's fainting, something must be wrong! The makeover of Sebastian into Bronwyn is very credible. Given the costume, wigs and makeup women wore in this era, it's perfectly possible for a fine-featured young man to masquerade as a female and not even raise an eyebrow. You might recall The Bisley Boy The book is quite well written, with a very clear narrative line only slightly marred by a tendency to be repetitive, especially with the overuse of names. The airy, frivolous style with a hint of the purple does remind me strongly of Heyer … think back to novels like Beauvallet There are a few errors, which is surprising -- for instance, constant disagreement in the proper forms of address for English nobility. “Lord Anthony Crofton” and “Anthony, Lord Crofton” are two different titles. He can be “Lord Anthony” or “Lord Crofton,” not both … and I know it’s devilishly confusing even for the English, or ex-Brits, like self! There are also some grammatical gaffs (for example, “Each man was dressed in their finest,”) but not so many that the reader sets the book down. It’s also very true that readers who don’t have a good ear for grammar won’t even see these problems, and if you’re not attuned to the niceties of English high society, you also wouldn’t know there was any problem with the forms of address. If I have any quibble, it’s in the inconsistency of some of the dialog, which bounces back and forth between formal, declaimed lines and more natural dialog framed with the kind of contractions we use in everyday speech. Sometimes the characters are declaiming their lines, at other times simply talking. Since the author has ditched any quasi-Shakespearean speech patterns (for which, thank you!) the latter works better for me, and I could have wished the dialog had been consistent throughout. The truth is, I haven’t read very much m/m, and I’m sure the device of sketching vast swathes of the storyline in shorthand, and then exploring the sex scenes in great detail is a common writing device. I understand that the m/m erotic romance reader is leapfrogging the less stimulating details to get back to the stuff that’ll steam up one’s reading glasses. There are still readers, however (self among them: my apologies) who skim the sex scenes to get back to the story; so I’d have liked more exposition regarding the society, the city, politics, religion, morality, fashion, and perhaps a hint of the very real risk Anthony and Sebastian are taking with their disparate -- dangerously illegal -- lifestyle. This said, The Actor and the Earl is a pure m/m romance, geared to the readers who are immersed in such fiction. The pacing and structure are crafted specifically for this readership, and when I say Keegan actually quite appreciated it, given my normal reading, it’s a chalk mark for Rebecca Cohen. The book seems superbly suited to the pure romance aficionado who’ll happily turn a blind eye to the occasional gaff. Recommended if you’re looking for light reading with an edge of historical fantasy, sexy narrative, and above all a plot that doesn’t digress into areas other than romance! |
by Judith Cook; Harrap, 1986. Note -- non-fiction.)
by Chris Hunt (GMP, 1995), which explored the old urban legend that Queen Elizabeth I was in fact male, having been replaced by her lookalike cousin when she died in late childhood, leaving the throne and the country in jeopardy. I have no difficulty accepting this aspect of the story.
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