Nicholas Cooke, Actor, Soldier, Physician, Priest

First-novelist Cowell vividly captures the earthily lyrical language and harsh social reality of Elizabethan England in an outstanding historical drama. At age five, Nick sees his father hanged as a thief; his mother is reduced to taking in laundry, and the intelligent boy becomes a scholarship student at the King's School in Canterbury. But his headmaster deems the wild, angry teenager unsuitable for higher education and apprentices him to a wheelwright. After stabbing his brutal master in self-defense, Nick runs away to London. Playwright Kit Morley (aka Christopher Marlowe) seduces the impressionable youth and places him with actor/manager John Heminges, whose beautiful wife Rebecca prompts Nick's first heterosexual longings. Torn and confused, Nick feels he must avenge Morley's murder; yet he feels loyal to sympathetic Will Shagspere (Cowell uses the variant 16th-century spelling), who comforts him; and to Heminges, who offers him trust and affection. Overriding all is his own wish to be a priest and a physician. Struggling to master his uncertainties, he follows Lord Essex to the disastrous Irish war. Later, shaken by the experience, Nick returns to London and the theater company, marries and becomes a successful leading actor. Never wholly satisfied, he finally breaks free to study theology and medicine. The golden age of English theater comes to life in Cowell's vigorous prose, as does her turbulent, conflicted protagonist. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.)